DoD IP Space

Fri Feb 5 22:21:04 UTC 2021

> On Jan 21, 2021, at 14:22 , Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:
> 
>>> I’m sure we all remember Y2k (well, most of us, there could be some
>>> young-uns on the list). That day was happening whether we wanted it to
>>> or not. It was an unchangeable, unmovable deadline.
>> 
>> but i thought 3gpp was gong to force ipv6 adoption
> 
> let me try it a different way
> 
> why should i care whether you deploy ipv6, move to dual stack, cgnat,
> ...?  you will do whatever makes sense to the pointy heads in your c
> suite.  why should i give them or some tech religion free rent in my
> mind when i already have too much real work to do?
> 

Presumably because you have reason to connect to the internet.

Presumably you intend that connection to the internet to be able to reach
a variety of third parties.

As such, there is some reasonable basis for the idea that how third parties
choose to manage their network impacts decisions you need to make about
your own network.

E.G. Facebook has decided to go almost entirely IPv6, yet they maintain an
IPv4 presence on their front-end in order to support users that are victims of
IPv4-only networks and devices. Facebook faces a cost in having to maintain
those services to reach those customers. That cost could be reduced by the
providers in question (and in some cases the device manufacturers) providing
robust IPv6 implementations in their products and services.

Unfortunately, NAT, CGNAT, and IPv4 in general are an unrecognized cost
inflicted on people who are not involved in the decision to implement those
processes vs. deploying IPv6, thus creating. a situation where those who
have deployed IPv6 yet wish to maintain connectivity to those who have not
are essentially subsidizing those who have not in order to maintain that
connectivity.

Now, if the true cost of that were more transparent and the organizations
not deploying IPv6 could be made more aware of the risks of what happens
when a variety of organizations choose to put an end to that subsidy,
it might get more attention at the CxO level. Unfortunately, the perverse
incentives of the market (providers that are willing to offer legacy services
are more likely to retain customers than providers that aren’t) prevent
those paying the subsidy from opting out (at least for now) because the
critical mass of customers still clinging to their legacy networks presumably
comes with a value that exceeds the cost of that subsidy.

There was actually some excellent work done to try and quantify this
in terms of Per User Per Year costs to an average ISP by
Lee Howard: https://www.rmv6tf.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/TCO-of-CGN1.pdf

Owen