[ppml] "Who's afraid of IPv4 address depletion? Apparently no one."

[bmanning at vacation.karoshi.com]

On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 06:34:53PM -0500, John Curran wrote:
> At 10:56 PM +0000 2/9/08, bmanning at vacation.karoshi.com wrote:
> >
> >	i think a safe presumption is that this may be a
> >	predominant structure as long as there are "arrogant
> >	twits" who maintain the fiction that only IPv4 transport
> >	is needed to get to their content/eyeballs.  e.g. if
> >	facebook never supports IPv6 transport, this will be common.
> >	Facebook will never see IPv6 demand and claim "all is well"
> >	with IPv4 and the IPv6 hype is just that.
> 
> Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, MSN, Youtube, .... the list goes on and on.
> I wouldn't expect any of them to see measurable demand for IPv6
> until there's a sizable IPv6-only user community.

	actually, I never expect them to see a demand for
	IPv6 - at least from the trenches. Folks will 
	"wrap" IPv6 access in/around NAT-PT or IVI and
	all they will see is IPv4 access requests.

> An IPv6-only user community is definitely going to happen (my own
> opinion) but it's years away and occurs when ISP's have no real cost-
> effective alternative for extending growth via IPv4.  Even if some user
> communities go dual-stack before then, that's not exactly a compelling
> reason for content providers to invest in IPv6 infrastructure since dual-
> stack implies that they can already get the same users over IPv4.
> 
> Can you explain why there will be a significant base of IPv6-only users
> before then?

	some communities are already in that situation... at least on
	a global scale. and they are the ones active in the development
	and fine tuning of the ALG's that provide "seamless" migration
	btwn address families.  and in this situation, the content providers
	will -never- see IPv6 demand as a groundswell.

> Without IPv6-only users or some compelling benefits for IPv6 versus IPv4
> transport, it's hard to see why the content community would invest ahead
> of time.  Existing enterprises, consumers, and content providers all have
> working infrastructure that still meets their needs once there is no readily
> available free pool; it's the ISP business growth model that gets impacted
> and hence the ISP community that needs to drive any desired transition.

	I expect the content community will be complacent in their
	rich IPv4 mesh.  And at some point, in one of those IPv6 only
	enclaves, something new will emerge that is available on IPv6
	only.  Folks will want that feature/capability.  And low'n'behold,
	the ALG that lets the IPv6 only crowd out to the IPv4 world will
	let the IPv4 world into the IPv6 world.  Then the question will be
	one of ALG scalability.   :)

> /John

	
--bill (my own opinions as well)