Rate of growth on IPv6 not fast enough?

Mon Apr 19 17:45:09 UTC 2010

On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Mohacsi Janos <mohacsi at niif.hu> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Mon, 19 Apr 2010, Bill Bogstad wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Frank Bulk - iName.com
>> <frnkblk at iname.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Don't forget the home gateway aspect -- it's a huge gaping hole in the
>>> IPv6
>>> deployment strategy for ISPs.  And don't talk to me about Apple's Airport
>>> Extreme.  ISPs want (once the volume of IETF IPv6-related drafts has
>>> settled
>>> down) for every router at Wal-mart to include IPv6 support.  If they
>>> start
>>> right now and presume that home gateways/routers are replaced every 3 to
>>> 5
>>> years, it will be several years before they've covered even 50% of the
>>> homes.
>>
>> Alternatively, they could commission the vendors to release firmware
>> upgrades with IPv6 support for the most common older devices.   Given
>> that many of them are Linux based and the code already exists, this
>> isn't likely to be technically difficult.
>
> Yes it is. Most of the home gateways are are manufactured : develop, produce
> and forget life-cycle. The development codebase, is not existing anymore.
> The developers are moved to another company.... You barely have support for
> low-end home gateways after a year of first shipment. In the first year some
> bugfixing....

That's because they aren't getting paid for maintaining old firmware
(razor thin margins).  At least in the case of Linux based units, GPL
enforcement has for the most part required them to keep better track
of their codebase.  As a result, I think this is more feasible then
you do.   Still it WOULD be easier to just work on getting all new
equipment IPv6 capable.  Both cable and cellphone companies already
commission custom firmware for their settop boxes and cell phones, I
see no reason that ISPs couldn't do the same.

>
>> Start by commissioning IPv6 support into all new hardware.   I would
>> think that given the razor thin margins in home gateways/routers extra
>> money coming in for simply turning on code which already exists would
>> be attractive to at least some of them.  Come up with some kind of
>> logo for the program "IPv6 READY!".
>
> Don't count much on "IPv6 READY!" logo. IPv6 READY usually means, there are
> some IPv6 support in the device, but it might not work on your particular
> environment....: no IPv6 on PPPoE, no DHCPv6 support, no IPv6 setting are
> possible on webinterface....

That's why you make it a trademarked logo and you have licensing
requirements that
specify what must be included in order for them to use the logo on
their marketing materials.  The consortium decides what is needed to
make IPv6  work for them and enforces it via logo licensing.
Frankly if the protocols out of the IETF for things like
DHCP/default routes don't make sense, the consortium can simply
specify something else.   I'm pretty sure that if the spec comes with
a sufficiently large check attached the OEMs will implement whatever
you want in the firmware.

Bill Bogstad