[arin-ppml] general vendor comment

[Fred Baker]

On May 7, 2009, at 11:20 AM, George, Wes E [NTK] wrote:

> It needs to go beyond just asking if there's a roadmap or a plan to  
> support IPv6. While there are vendors that don't have one yet, there  
> are plenty that do.
> IPv6 has been an RFP checkbox for a long time now, so lots of  
> companies have a "story to tell" when asked. It mostly translates to  
> "eventually..."
>
> At this point, it has to ratchet up a bit to underscore the urgency.  
> The hope is that people are starting to get a feel for how long it  
> will be before they have the ability/need to roll out IPv6 in their  
> production environment. That timeline needs to be communicated to  
> your vendors, with the expectation that if they aren't working to  
> meet your required timeline, future contract renewals and new  
> business would be in jeopardy. You want to keep complaining that  
> your upstream doesn't support IPv6? This is a way to fix it.

Personally, I think the way to go about it is to schedule a separate  
meeting with them with this as the topic. Make it clear that you are  
meeting with lots of vendors, and ask them to come with a prepared  
presentation with dates.

At least that seems to be what our customers do.