ISPs May be Slow to Adopt IPv6, But the Service Is Here to Stay, IPv6 Forum Chief Says

IPv6 Day will be a “global-scale test flight” aimed at persuading the Internet sector to switch from IPv4 addresses, which are now depleted, to the new technology, ISOC said last month. In addition to the main event, Ladid said he expects many local pilots to take place over closed networks. That’s OK, he said, because the idea is to “get folks to try IPv6” to see that it works well.

The test is for IPv6 traffic across all points of the Internet, from content providers through all network components to the end-user, said CompTIA Director of Technology Analysis Seth Robinson. The path traveled by Internet traffic covers a broad range of topics, from local network administration to backbone coverage to network hardware support to end-user operating systems, he said. While the test is easy to describe, it has many parts that will have to be examined, he said.

Since content providers are hoping that IPv4 content will be served if IPv6 content fails, many end-users may be unaware of issues unless they're actively monitoring things, Robinson said. But there should still be a great deal of analysis after the event so consumers and companies can understand any actions they should take, he said.

The test is just the “first step of awareness” of the move to IPv6, Ladid said. The good news is that it will create movement toward a collective global effort, he said. The bad news is that it “will not be enough since the ISPs have not joined” the initiative to give end-users a high level of service, he said.

Just the fact that IPv6 Day is happening is a good step toward adoption of the protocol, Robinson said. Take-up has been slow due to the lack of immediate need, he said. But the fact that IPv4 addresses have run out makes the need more pressing, and “now the time has come to test IPv6 readiness,” he said.

The list of participants, including major Internet traffic drivers such as Microsoft, is “an encouraging sign,” Robinson said. It shows strong interest in the protocol, and some organizations hope to leave IPv6 permanently enabled if all goes as planned, he said. Many more companies may not take part “but will be watching the news carefully” to understand the implications of IPv6, he said.

Only 21 percent of 400 U.S. information technology and business leaders polled have performed the network upgrades needed for IPv6, CompTIA said Monday. Fifty-six percent said they've followed the news on the technology; 30 percent have looked at the implications more deeply; and 31 percent believe the switch will be mostly smooth, it said.

Luxembourg P&T’s new commercial IPv6 service opened June 1 and is available to all of its 120,000 customers, Chief Technology Officer Jean-Marie Spaus said in an interview. Users can go to the website and switch to the technology now, he said.

The key objective of the project, which began internally nearly three years ago, was to give P&T customers a smooth transition, Spaus said. The ISP is running IPv4 and IPv6 in tandem, he said. The biggest challenge was installing equipment in the field to enable customers to use IPv6, because users can’t be forced to do the technical work or to pay for the transition themselves, he said.

The move to IPv6 was extremely expensive because the company had to replace a great deal of customer premises equipment (CPE) such as routers, Spaus said. Subscribers to P&T’s DSL service are given routers at no charge but are free to install and configure their own, making it difficult to ensure now that everyone has the right router at the right level, he said. CPE from P&T can be upgraded remotely, he said. The launch of the IPv6 service destroyed some services customers had tailored for themselves, but P&T handled the problems via help desks manned by well-trained staff, he said.

Cox Business began giving select business customers dual-stack service last year and is now conducting residential service trials with its employees, it said Monday. The early testing is to ensure that business users can provide a consistent service to their end-users, said Senior Director of Architecture Jeff Finkelstein. “Using a voice analogy, when someone makes a call you want to make sure the phone rings on the other end,” he said.

The success of IPv6 Day will be determined by “how much disruption takes place” across the Internet as the major providers turn on the technology for their service, Robinson said. It’s hoped the disturbances are minimal, particularly to end-users, he said. There will probably be some places where IPv6 traffic isn’t handled well or transitions from IPv4 to IPv6 are bumpy, but if they don’t affect the majority of traffic, they will still provide good data for improvement, he said.

The IPv6 Forum will “only be happy when IPv6 is the dominant” protocol, Ladid said. “We are in for the long run and it will happen,” he said. “There is no shadow of doubt about this undertaking."

IPv6 support has been built into cable’s DOCSIS 3.0 broadband standard since 2006 and is also supported by certain DOCSIS 2.0 modems where a cable operator has upgraded its headend facilities to DOCSIS 3.0, said Chris Donley, project director for Network Protocols at CableLabs, in an interview last week. That means a large percentage of deployed cable modems can support IPv6, he said and that percentage is increasing rapidly. “We've been meeting with cable operators on a weekly basis for the last two years now, and there is a lot of momentum and a lot of experience being built up for supporting IPv6,” he said. For World IPV6 Day, CableLabs will host a teleconference bridge all day for operators to call in and get help troubleshooting any problems that may come up, he said.

U.S. cable operators will turn on IPv6 for enough customers to give them a sense of whether operators will be ready for the full transition, Donley said. “What everybody is looking for here is to make sure the networks are in as good shape as possible and the users are getting as good experience as possible on IPv6,” he said. “Everyone is very comfortable that their networks are set up and ready to go, but everyone is going to look at this very carefully to see how much traffic is going over IPv6 that day and whether they are getting an unexpected number of trouble calls,” he said.

Comcast said Monday it’s expanding its DOCSIS-based native Dual Stack trials to “select locations” in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago and Miramar, Fla. The expansion includes new home network equipment from D-Link, it said. “The successful expansion of our trials is a clear indicator of Comcast’s and the cable industry’s readiness for IPv6, John Brzozowski, Comcast’s chief architect for IPv6, wrote on the company’s blog Monday.