Finger pointing [was: Yahoo and IPv6]

Mon May 9 21:48:34 UTC 2011

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 4:40 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick at ianai.net> wrote:
> Unfortunately, finger-pointing will not fix the problem.

Actually, finger-pointing is very helpful at this stage.  I was able
to change my local ISP's tune from "we have enough IPv4 addresses for
our customers, so we aren't going to support IPv6" (ever) to "we will
start employee beta testing soon."  It ultimately took the threat of
running an Op-Ed in the business section of the local paper to get
them to realize they can't continue with their plan to offer no IPv6
support at all.

With 800,000 SOHO CPE units deployed that have no IPv6 support and no
remote firmware upgrade option on the horizon, I can understand why
they hoped they could avoid ever supporting v6 -- it will cost them,
literally, a hundred million dollars to fix their CPE situation and
deploy native IPv6 if their CPE vendor can't provide a remote update.
This is also why tunneled solutions are receiving so much effort and
attention -- truck rolls and CPE replacement are huge expenses.

If we don't start pointing fingers at these access networks, they
won't "get it" until the pain of IPv4 depletion lands squarely on
content networks who may eventually be unable to get any IPv4
addresses for their services, or who may be forced to buy transit from
networks who have large, legacy IPv4 pools sitting around just to get
a provider allocation.

-- 
Jeff S Wheeler <jsw at inconcepts.biz>
Sr Network Operator  /  Innovative Network Concepts