Re: [RRG] IPv4 shortage, new features and IPv6 inevitability

[Mark Prior <mrp@mrp.net>]

Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:

> Any claims of 5 or 10 years or even longer is highly suspect because I
> don't see a quantitative basis for it. My best guesstimate about the
> IPv4 depletion is that we'll run out in 2012, so yes, in 5 years most
> people will still be running IPv4. But if good transition mechanisms are
> available, it will be easy to move to IPv6-only while still having
> access to IPv4 resources and then a significant number of people could
> be living on an IPv6-only network fairly soon.

As Geoff mentioned recently at the AusNOG conference the guestimate is
optimistic at best because it is just based on the current pattern of
usage and does not take into account that human nature will cause a rush
on addresses as the count down gets ever closer.

>> Iljitsch, despite what you wrote and what quite a few people believe
>> about IPv6 and about IPv4 utilization, still I believe (for all the
>> reasons I stated) that IPv6 offers no short to medium term (1 to 5
>> years) benefit to ordinary Internet users (and therefore their ISPs)
>> compared to the costs of adopting it.
> 
> The benefit is that you get to connect new users to the network for more
> than just the next 5 years.

I think there is also a financial opportunity for ISPs that have IPv4
address space but could migrate customers to IPv6 and thus build a free
pool of a commodity that everyone else wants. Could be a nice little
earner as the dinosaurs get more desperate :)

>> The trouble is, as I outlined above, IPv6 only solves the IPv4
>> address depletion problem once everyone - or almost everyone - has
>> moved to IPv6.
> 
> That's why we still need to work on transition mechanisms in the IETF.
> Dual stack isn't it.

We don't need a transition mechanism we need a coexistence solution so
"the Internet" remains accessible to all irrespective of what protocol
is in use under the hood.

> Could be. I'm pretty sure that many ISPs never bother to reuse old
> address space when customers leave etc but simply request new stuff.

I find that somewhat hard to believe. When I was working at a major
Australian ISP our system would return address space back into our free
pool when the customer left (quarantining it for a period) and then
reused it.

If it's really being wasted like that then perhaps it's time for the
RIR's to audit usage before assigning more space to existing customers.

>> But why would I, or most other end-users (and their ISPs) get IPv6
>> connectivity, ensure our most important devices, hosts OSes and
>> applications are IPv6 compatible, when there is no benefit now or in
>> the next few years over continuing to use IPv4 and leaving my
>> computer undisturbed?
> 
> Forget end-users. They don't know about this stuff. ISPs will start at
> some point but they're going to wait some more because if you have the
> choice between spending money now or spending it tomorrow, the latter is
> usually a no-brainer.

End users couldn't care less about the plumbing (aside from possibly
reading about it in the press). ISPs could be using RFC1149 based
networks for all they care :) It's the ISPs who should be the ones
caring since they need the extra addresses to continue to grow so they
need a workable solution to the problem. The danger for the ISPs in this
game of chicken is how much it costs to do something now versus how much
it's going to cost later and it would appear that they think it's going
to be cheaper later.

Mark.

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