[nycbug-talk] IPv6 Followup

[Yusuke Shinyama]

On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 19:25:33 -0500, Isaac Levy <ike at lesmuug.org> wrote:
> 
> You don't see much IPv6?  Look a bit broader...
> 
> > [nycbug-talk] IPv6 in Japan
> > Thu Mar 22 00:00:59 EDT 2007
> 
> http://lists.nycbug.org/pipermail/talk/2007-March/009955.html
> 
> Re-read the warwalking experiences and misc in that message:
> > 2) HUMBLING EXPERIENCES:
> > 3) NNT Do Co Mo:
> And I'll add to that, look past the glossy IT-industry mags, and look  
> over at the the IIJ...
> Jump on some wireless hotspots around the Tokyo metro area and fire up  
> pin6, traceroute6...  you'll see what I mean...

Well, I have to say your story was a bit misleading.  That's
basically only in Univ. Tokyo and a couple of other limited places
they're experimenting. (BTW, U-tokyo is probably one of the
richest university in the world, sucking up the 10% of the annual
budget for the entire higher education in Japan, spending about
$2b a year.  So I guess they have plenty of money to play this
kind of stuff.)  In the area of my residence, 6 or 7 miles away
from u-tokyo, I don't even see any hotspot. Most commercial DSL or
optical connections are cheaper and more stable than Comcast or
Verizon, but nothing fancy. And yes, you can use v6 native
connections from home if you try hard, but it's expensive and no
support (that's what they're calling "experimental", I guess), so
I don't care. For a non-geek consumer's point of view, IPv6
doesn't offer anything but troubles.  In my workplace I've seen
people having enough problems with Vista enabled v6, which
makes them turn the feature off completely, only leaving bad
impressions about v6.

I've come to NYC around 2001 (actually, just before Sep 11), then
I got a degree, and now come back to Tokyo. And my impression
about IPv6 is pretty much like "uh, nothing has been
changed after six years. What were those people doing?"  
Some media are still agitating that IPv6 shall come very
soon, but in reality no one cares. And I'm already tired
of "you could have your microwave connected online!"  
kind of hype, which is still commonly used here.  
Panasonic website has a good example: they have a "kids'
page" for explaining ipv6, which basically says "IPv6 all connects
the electric stuff at your home together! TVs, ACs, and lamps..."
(http://panasonic.biz/ipv6/doit/doit_01.html)
I think it's a pretty unattractive future that a billion-doller
spent project can envision for us. Actually, I'm dissapointed
that, after almost ten years of trying, no one can ever 
come up with a good use of v6 that has enough appeal for
general public (other than hacking). This already seems a big defeat.

Sorry for being negative... I'm awaiting someone rebutting
this argument.

Yusuke