IPv6 woes - RFC

Fri Sep 10 07:21:26 UTC 2021

Owen DeLong via NANOG <nanog at nanog.org> writes:

> The addresses aren’t the major cost of providing IPv4 services.
>
> CGN boxes, support calls, increasing size of routing table = buying new routers, etc.

You're counting dual-stack costs as if IPv4 was the optional protocol.
That's a fantasy world.  Time to get out of la-la land now.

Your edge routers can do CGN for all connected users just fine. Yes,
there is still a cost both in resources and management, but you'll have
to weigh that against the cost of doing dual-stack on the same box.  I'm
not convinced dual-stack wins.

Don't know what you're thinking of wrt support calls, but dual-stack has
some failure modes which are difficult to understand for both end users
and support.  NAT is pretty well understood in comparison.

Your routing tables won't grow with IPv4 or CGN.  They grow when you add
IPv6.

> Increased cost of developers having to work around NAT and NAT
> becoming ever more complex with multiple layers, etc.

And this can be avoided by reconfiguring the local network somehow?  Or
are we talking about an Internet without IPv4?  This is even more
fantastic than the idea that IPv4 is optional in the local network.

> All of these are the things driving the ever increasing cost of IPv4
> services, not just the cost of the addresses.

Yes, the cost of addresses is not prohibitive, and there is no
indication it will be.

The consolidation of hosting services have reduced the need for globally
routable addresses.  You don't host your own mail server and web server
anymore, even if you're a large organisation.  Most ISPs haven't yet
taken advantage of this.  They are still giving globally routable IPv4
addresses to customers which have no need for that.  These addresses can
be re-allocated for CGN if there is a need. This is obviously still not
free, but it does limit the price of fresh IPv4 addresses.

The other costs you list will not affect an IPv4 only shop at all.

Bjørn