Cable, CE Executives Pleased with Initial World IPv6 Results
CHICAGO -- Some of the nation’s leading cable operators, cable programmers, cable tech vendors and consumer electronics retailers said they were pleased and relieved by the initial results from last week’s global test of the Internet’s next-generation protocol, IPv6, which apparently went off without any major problems. Appearing on a special Cable Show forum on IPv6 this week, cable, CE and other officials said World IPv6 Day generated surprisingly few user glitches during the 24-hour period that stretched over parts of June 7 and 8 in North America. They also said IPv6 traffic climbed strongly on the world’s data networks that day and, while it still remains at relatively low levels, has continued to run much higher than its previous mark.
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"There was a sustained uptick in various types of IPv6 traffic,” said John Brzozowski, a chief architect for IPv6 and distinguished engineer at Comcast. “The needle moved.” In Comcast’s case, for instance, he said native IPv6 traffic rose sixfold during the event itself and has now grown 10-fold in the week since World IPv6 Day.
Despite the traffic surge, Brzozowski said, Comcast did not see any real jump in customer support calls or Web inquiries. “We literally had one email support request,” he said. “The joke I used yesterday was it was a waste of 37 hours of not sleeping for me."
Similarly, Time Warner Cable reported few complaints from its broadband subscribers. Unlike Comcast, Lee Howard, director of network technology for Time Warner, said TWC did field hundreds of customer support calls on World IPv6 Day. But two-thirds of those calls, he said, were just questions about what the protocol was and what the test involved. “It was not even a blip on the radar screen,” Howard said. Although Time Warner Cable tested 564 addresses on the day, he said, just seven addresses actually failed to respond properly to IPv6. “We had more wrong numbers than we had problems,” he quipped.
Turner Broadcasting System also experienced few problems when it activated IPv6 for CNN.com traffic on World IPv6 Day, said Sam Gassel, technology fellow for digital media technologies. “The only complaint we got was from somebody who couldn’t access CNN via IPv6 only,” he said. “That’s a good problem to have."
Phil Roberts, technology program manager of the Internet Society (ISOC), which sponsored World IPv6 Day, said more than 1,000 websites participated in the event, including Google, YouTube, Facebook, MSN, AOL, Yahoo, CNN and BBC. Further, he said, roughly two-thirds of the 400 websites monitored by ISOC still have IPv6 running today, a week after the event. “This is a step along the path,” he said.
The speakers also stressed that lots of implementation work remains before the real switchover from IPv4 to IPv6 can happen. In particular, they said much work must be done to refine the IPv6 software and systems for content and network providers and embed the protocol into consumer electronics devices. “What’s available in the market today is ready for a low-volume test,” Gassel said. “Is it ready for a high volume? We'll find out next time."
Seeking to highlight the IPv6 transition on the exhibit floor, CableLabs demonstrated carrier-grade network address translation (NAT), which will permit ISPs to have many users share IPv4 addresses for tapping Web content once the IPv4 addresses start running out later this year. In addition, Comcast and Time Warner jointly showcased IPv6-compatible consumer electronics devices at a separate exhibit. “We still see challenges with certain advanced applications with carrier-grade NAT … but we are very close,” said Chris Donley, project director of network protocols for CableLabs. “Three months after ARIN [the American Registry for Internet Numbers] runs out [of IPv4 addresses], you'll see carrier-grade NAT show up in networks.” He said CableLabs will stage another IPv6 interoperability event for equipment providers in late September.