[ppml] Proposed Policy: IPv4 Countdown

[Edward Lewis]

At 8:37 +0000 3/15/07, <michael.dillon at bt.com> wrote:

>In my version of this thought experiment, the ARIN region quickly
>realized that roughly 90% of their infrastructure was capable of running
>IPv6 with only a software upgrade so they did upgrade. Problem solved.

What I am hearing and experiencing is that this isn't happening.

No one has a goal of using IPv6.  I've never gotten a budget request 
approved "just to update the technology."  No matter how trivial or 
cheap, change costs something, and more significantly, represents 
risk.  A lot of the lessons I learned involved the introduction of 
10BaseT on a government campus, i.e., it's been a while.  Have 
accounting people become that much more friendly to IT?

It has been said that it is human nature to only respond when it's an 
emergency.  This is stated as if this were a bad thing.  For 
business, they react appropriately according to importance, and the 
layer 3 protocol they use pales compared to the revenue generating 
activity they are supposed to pursue.  Sometimes, you shouldn't react 
until the last minute - see queuing theory, the later you can delay 
picking a server the better a decision you will make.

>In my version of this thought experiment, I finally got permission to
>attend the ARIN meeting 50 years from now after showing my boss my new
>certificate of proficiency in Chinese.

Funny you mention Chinese...

>People who indulge in this kind of thinking are generally unilingual and
>are unaware of how language issues affect Internet architecture. The
>centre of the English language Internet is unlikely to shift. The centre
>of the French speaking Internet wobbles between Canada and France. The
>centre of the Chinese speaking Internet is squarely in Asia. And so on.

There isn't an "English" Internet or a "French" Internet.  Besides 
that goal of  One Internet, the language of business is 
international.  (To wit: in a Taiwanese movie ("Yi Yi"), the 
Chinese-speaking father had to entertain a Japanese-speaking business 
partner at dinner.  The scene was in English - I don't mean to say 
English rules, but in this case, it appears completely out of 
cultural context.  The director, Edward Yang, could have had the 
scene in Mandarin but even he left it in what would have been the 
language used.)  There may be a center for a language, but the 
Internet is a tool for global commerce too, not just expatriate clubs.

This is why I am concerned that we might otherwise be left behind 
without a push.  Of course, all of my concern is absolute conjecture.

-- 
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Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar

Sarcasm doesn't scale.