IPv6 is better than ipv4

Tue Jun 7 11:31:07 UTC 2016

On Jun 2, 2016, at 1:38 PM, Mike Hammett <nanog at ics-il.net> wrote:
> 
> I would be surprised if more than 10% - 20% of networks have received effective marketing on IPv6. 
> 
> Look at how many network operators that don't "get" basic network security alerts like "There is a long since patched vulnerability being actively exploited on the Internet right now. Your equipment will reset to default in 18.5 hours of infection. Please patch now." Equipment resetting to default is a metric crap ton more serious than IPv6 implementation and people don't take that seriously. 
> 
> Think outside of the NANOG bubble.

I hesitated to reply on this thread, but want to reiterate the point 
Mike’s makes above, as he is spot on - 

There is a large number of Internet service providers who:

  - Don’t attend NANOG, or follow this mailing list
  - Don’t attend ARIN, or follow its mailing lists
  - Don’t have sales reps for the large-box vendors stopping by
      every quarter to tell them about the latest trend or gadget
      to buy…
  - Either run their Internet services in addition to many other 
      tasks (e.g. small MSO’s handling cable channels, telephone 
      services, and everything else), or 
  - Operate their Internet services on behalf of a small community
      (community ISPs, wireless ISPs in rural areas) on shoestring
      or even completely donated budgets.

These folks are your peers, but not literally, as they are often downstream
of a single ISP providing service to a small customer base with not much
growth.   For them, IPv6 reality is only just beginning, as each now comes 
into ARIN (usually several years since their last time in) and gets told 
“Yes, the regional IPv4 free pool really has run out - we simply don’t 
have any IPv4 blocks to issue to you.”

Sometimes they’ve heard of IPv6, but having heard about it for more
than a decade before it was actually needed, they just figured it was
a failed technology waiting to die…   (None of this was helped by the 
fact that the IPv6 marketing also occurred without any meaningful 
technologies or strategy to enable transition - these only appeared 
after the fact in the last five years when several operators realized 
that they had to actually make IPv6 deployable in the real world…) 

These smaller ISPs who are just now newly discovering IPv6 are not 
“ignorant” - they just haven’t had time or resources to worry about a 
problem that always seemed theoretical until today. Some go to the
transfer market, some go to the wait list, and some suddenly decide
to learn about IPv6 in a hurry - some do a combination of the above.

What these organizations need is realistic pointers to information 
(e.g. NANOG archives, IPv6 World Congress info, ARIN’s IPv6 wiki) 
that lets them understand exactly what and how others are handling 
this transition.  We do need to do outreach to them so that they know
they’ve got something real to deal with, and to start learning - what
isn’t particularly helpful is pure marketing to the effect that “delivering 
Internet services over IPv6 is easy” or “you don’t need IPv6 at all”…

/John