The Choice: IPv4 Exhaustion or Transition to IPv6

Thu Jun 28 19:02:56 UTC 2007

> 1. IPv4 address space is a scarce resource and it will soon be exhausted.
> 
> 2. It hasn't run out already due to various efficiency improvements.
> 
> 3. These are themselves limited.
> 
> 4. IPv6, though, will provide abundant address space.
> 
> 5. But there's no incentive to change until enough others do so to
> make it worthwhile.
> 
> 6. Economists call this a collective action problem. Traditional
> solutions include legislation, market leadership, and agreements among
> small actors to achieve such leadership.
> 

Let's keep in mind here, that a number of "organizations" -- the US 
Gov't, Japan and a few other places that get pay for things without a 
real market incentive are moving to support IPv6.

They will in turn put more pressure on their transit providers, vendors 
and IP talkers to talk to them on IPv6. This may help build #5's case up.

Cisco (via Linksys), Netgear and other consumer brand router 
manufacturers may start supporting IPv6 if the ISPs that are providing 
broadband start it, or the employers of these home customers (vis-a-vis 
the US Gov't) start making it easier to use their IPv6 VPN vs their IPv4 
VPN.

Content providers (as response to customer pressure) may opt to make 
their services available on native IPv6 if the networks that are using 
IPv6 have crappy IPv6-IPv4 gateways. (e.g. Video distributors, etc).

Market forces are already underway here, I fail to see why so many 
people are so concerned. Yes, we like hierarchical allocations, they are 
yummy to routers. Yes, we deal with humans and some adopt much slower 
than others.

Maybe I'm missing something,

DJ