[arin-ppml] How hard is it to transition to IPv6?

[Scott Helms]

Michael,

    I didn't get to reply to this earlier and only do so now to make 
sure I am communicating clearly.  I did not intend for anything to be 
taken as an attack, but I do feel very strongly that the industry in 
general ignores the smaller providers and I took your comments as 
continuing that cavalier approach.

michael.dillon at bt.com wrote:
>>     That is an interesting choice of words.  I don't know 
>> what kind of people you work for/with (I assume from your 
>> email address BT) but I can tell you that if I told my 
>> customers, who are ISPs, that they should stop "complaining" 
>> because they were "negligent" the response wouldn't be all 
>> that friendly. 
>>     
>
> That is an ad hominem attack and is not allowed on the ARIN
> policy discussion lists. You should be ashamed of yourself.
>   
Err, what?  This wasn't an attack of any sort and was much cooler than 
the initial reply I typed.  Perhaps the word negligent doesn't mean the 
same thing to you as it does to me, but that has an extremely negative 
connotation IMO.  When you use strong wording you will get a strong 
response.

> I don't speak for BT or any other company who hosts one of
> my three email addresses. Why would you think otherwise?
> Do you think that the only people on this list are owner
> operators of their own business.
>   
I never said anything about owner/operators.  I'm not nor does that have 
any bearing on the conversation in my view, what does is experience at 
various kinds and sizes of organizations.  That was my entire point, 
working at BT doesn't give you a clear picture of the challenges the 
face small and medium ISP's any more than working at a small ISP would 
give someone a good understanding of the issues that BT faces.  
Certainly anyone with any experience in the industry will understand far 
more than the general public or even other technology professionals but 
not enough insight to be able to say that X will be problematic while Y 
will be easy.

> And read my email again, carefully this time. In effect, I told
> the customers of all ISPs, not just one ISP, that they SHOULD
> complain about their ISP supplier's negligence if that ISP 
> supplier does not provide satisfactory timelines for IPv6 support.
> If you are signing two year contracts, then you might get one 
> more renegotiation cycle before IPv4 runs out. If you are signing
> on for three years, you might not get a chance until it is 
> too late, which means that NOW IS THE TIME TO TALK TO ALL OF
> YOUR SUPPLIERS of network services and network equipment and
> network software. This is simple reasoning based on the 
> projected runout dates.
>   
We are, have been, and will continue to do so but again the largest 
challenges that ISPs face are the pieces that end users directly 
control.  What I was trying to get across, and apparently failing, was 
that the Google example is not particularly applicable to ISPs, 
especially small and medium ones.

> P.P.S. My employer BT has at least one ISP customer who is complaining
> that we haven't got full IPv6 support soon enough. This is good. It
> helps 
> us to do the right thing. Arguing about IPv6 in industry fora is lots of
>
> fun but does not lead to the right results. The only dialog that will
> help
> you get what you need to fully deploy IPv6 is dialog with your
> suppliers.
> If you aren't already engaged in that dialog this late in the game then
> you definitely should be complaining to suppliers, raising ruckus with
> them, escalating it with them and suing them if necessary.
>
> Here, read about what happens when a customer complains, down near
> the bottom of this page <http://www.aaisp.net.uk/news-ipv6.html>
>
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>   


-- 
Scott Helms
Vice President of Technology
ISP Alliance, Inc. DBA ZCorum
(678) 507-5000