An Internet IPv6 Transition Plan

Tue Jul 24 20:34:01 UTC 2007

> However, what I'm trying to understand is why the motivation 
> to rapidly go from v4 to v6 only? What are the factors I'm 
> missing in operating v4/v6 combined for some time?

Growth.

Lack of IPv4 addresses will put the brakes on growth of the Internet
which will have a major impact on revenue growth. Before long stock
market analysts are going to be asking tough questions, and CEOs are
suddenly going to see the IPv6 light.

By offering pure IPv6 edge services, you can continue to grow the
network unhampered by IPv4 exhaustion. For instance, offering consumer
Internet connectivity using pure IPv6 from your edge
router/DSLAM/termserver to the customer. If the customer sends you IPv4
packets, you drop them because you only route IPv6 for them.

At the very least this will involve running some kind of proxy farm so
that IPv6-only customers can still access IPv4-only Internet services.
And it will also require fully functional IPv6 peering and transit
agreements so that the IPv6 traffic can get to and from the IPv6
Internet effectively. You will be running a mixed v4/v6 network for the
next 25 years, because IPv4 is not going away but if you refuse to add
commercial IPv6 capability to your network, then you are putting the
brakes on growth.

Pure and simple.

--Michael Dillon

P.S. I think this is the real IPv6 killer app, i.e. helping the CEO keep
market analysts happy and keeping the company alive through the IPv4
exhaustion crisis. A lot of telecoms companies will not survive this
crisis.