[nycbug-talk] (I hate IPv6!) - Thread Fork

[Chris Buechler]

Isaac Levy wrote:
>> I think all you said above pretty much proves my point -
>> a) ipv6 not ready for prime time
>> b) nobody gives a damn about v6
>>     
>
> Alex, you've inspired me to fork this whole topic to a different  
> thread.  This is not a joke.
>
> Seriously speaking here, what do you see as the largest problems to  
> the US getting wired and up to speed with IPv6?  Why do you think it  
> won't happen anytime soon?
>   


Speaking from the perspective of the organizations whose networks I run, 
it won't happen in the foreseeable future because there's no business 
reason to do so. The benefits of IPv6 aren't enough on their own to 
justify the migration, and public IP's are readily available for little 
or no cost. The driver of migration I foresee is increasing cost of 
public IP's. If they do indeed eventually become as scarce as people 
think they will then the cost will go up substantially enough to drive 
the change. None of the several T1 providers I use charge anything for 
public IP's, and will give you up to a /24 at no cost if you can justify 
having it. The local LEC will give you 5 public IP's for $5/month on a 
business DSL account, and the local cable company charges $5/month per 
IP for additional IP's. At those costs, nobody cares about extra IP 
space because it would take 100+ years of IP charges to equal the cost 
of migrating to IPv6.

Plus, no ISP around here offers IPv6, probably because they have plenty 
of IPv4 addresses and don't care to deal with the support issues an IPv6 
network would undoubtedly cause. "Local" and "around here" being the 
Louisville KY metro area, nowhere near NYC, but not a hole in the ground 
either with ~1 million people.

My view is businesses drive IT demand, whether it's an ISP or any other 
sort of vendor or service provider, and businesses won't be pushing for 
IPv6 until the cost of IPv4 is excessive enough to justify the expense 
of conversion. The politics, coolness factor, geek factor, or whatever 
that drives those of you on this list that want IPv6 isn't nearly 
widespread enough to drive any significant change.

cheers,
-Chris