[arin-discuss] IPv6 as justification for IPv4?

Tue Apr 16 15:13:24 EDT 2013

John and Brian,

The comparison is laudable, however it doesn't take into account a few differences which end up having a significant impact on the implementation of the solution.  Hopefully as you read this not as discouraging news but rather realistic challenges and their resulting impacts.  Here are what I believe to be the most significant differences:

1)     Y2K was an event which was absolutely certain in timing.  IPv4 Address depletion was predicted two decades ago.  Yet it only occurred at a global level through IANA a couple of years ago, and at APNIC then RIPE, but has yet to occur at ARIN, LACNIC and AFRINIC.  And then each provider has varying pools, and if some providers are not experiencing subscriber growth, IPv4 depletion isn't actually something to worry about.  The point is IPv4 exhaust is not as universally necessary and coincidental as Y2K was.

2)     Y2K didn't have significant inter-operability challenges.  Each standalone system required patches or perhaps in some cases synchronization was required within an entity's system, but at least it was all within their control.  In the case of the internet, the end to end ecosystem includes myriad equipment manufacturers (including consumer electronic), OS makers, ISPs, content providers, and so on.  No single entity controls the ecosystem, but it is shared by many, many participants, which means that perfect co-ordination is out of the question, which means transition is necessary.  The point here is unlike Y2K, you can't just go out and fix the problem once and for all.  At minimum there are a few phases you need to plan for.

In addition, there are a few barriers to IPv6 including familiarity of the staff with IPv4 over IPv6.  In the case of Y2K the date format was not changing to a degree that necessitated serious training for the staff to understand a new format.  Additionally the transition phase(s) resulting from point 2 means additional cost for a likely long period of time operating dual-stack in some form.  I could go on with other reasons, but I think these constitute the major differences between Y2K and IPv6.

Now with the "bad" news behind us, I would back up Lee's comments of the positive signs of IPv6 deployment.  Google statistics show that the industry recently passed the 1% threshold of traffic over IPv6.  This may not seem like a major milestone, but the S curve model, which is used also to represent the spread of a virus in a population increases its slope significantly when a tipping point like this is achieved.  By the end of 2015, Google data predicts 10-14% of internet traffic will be IPv6, and by the end of 2020 it will be 70%.  And I am not aware of a major provider that is not ramping up their IPv6 effort.

Hopefully this message is ultimately encouraging.  I am personally excited to think that IPv6 will represent the majority of traffic by the end of the decade.  That's awesome!

mw

From: arin-discuss-bounces at arin.net [mailto:arin-discuss-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of Brian Jones
Sent: April 16, 2013 11:31 AM
To: John Von Essen
Cc: arin-discuss
Subject: Re: [arin-discuss] IPv6 as justification for IPv4?

Just an observation from your observation...
If we were sufficiently motivated we could fully implement IPv6 quickly... Thinking back to the Y2K software and hardware upgrades it demonstrates what can be done when it is deemed absolutely necessary...

--
Brian

On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 1:32 PM, John Von Essen <john at quonix.net<mailto:john at quonix.net>> wrote:
Just for thought....

Lets say in the future (5 years from now), the entire world has switched over to IPv6 and IPv4 is completely dead in the public space.

Since v6 space is so huge and abundant, the fees by Arin, Apnic, etc.,. should be almost nothing compared to what they are now since the effort to manage and give it out will be minimal. The blocks are so large, that 99% of Orgs would request one block, and never ever need to make another request again. So the number of support tickets by Arin for resource requests would be a fraction of what they are now. Not to mention, there wont be as many small multi-homed ISP's applying since getting IP space from upstreams will no longer be "difficult".

This means in the future that bodies like Arin will get smaller, with less staff, and a much smaller operating budget.

Hmmm, maybe this is why IPv4 is still around, and will remain for a very very long time.

Heck, if we can upgrade every computers OS for Y2K, we can switch the world over to IPv6 and kill v4 once and for all.

-John

On Apr 16, 2013, at 1:14 PM, Jesse D. Geddis wrote:
What's funny is the model some these guys are arguing for is a tax model like:

We pay 10% until our income is $100,000

At which point we should pay no more than $10,000 total in taxes/fees on all income past a trillion and into infinity. It doesn't make sense...

If you're going to make a linear scale keep it linear.

Jesse Geddis
LA Broadband LLC

On Apr 16, 2013, at 6:55 AM, "rlc at usfamily.net<mailto:rlc at usfamily.net>" <rlc at usfamily.net<mailto:rlc at usfamily.net>> wrote:
If I understand the ARIN revenue "needs" as approximately $8 per class C
correctly, that means we are paying almost 6x more than that (in our particular
case).  It would seem that a lot of you on the list don't seem to care that big
ISP's get their IP's at a discounted rate, thus putting the rest of us at a
market disadvantage.  I knew exactly where the thread go when I pulled it
(nowhere), but it is amusing to watch the action.

I did see somewhat of a new bizarre response this time around, though.  Someone
actually likened this to getting the rich to "pay their fair share".  Perhaps
they didn't notice, but nobody was advocating for a progressive tax.   Quite
the contrary, we are talking about a "flat tax" to replace the current heavily
REGRESSIVE tax.  Thus, that was one of the most preposterous responses ever.

I have heard continual whining about lack of IPv6 adoption, while ARIN refuses
to adopt policies to encourage it.  Stop the whining, or do something about it.

In the meantime, the big ISP's will continue to pull the strings.

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