N reasons for not deploying ipv6 (was: Re: [narten at us.ibm.com:PI addressing in IPv6 advances in ARIN])

[Iljitsch van Beijnum]

On 17-apr-2006, at 19:46, Eric Klein wrote:

>> That's a fairy tale. There is no country-based discrimination in  
>> effect.

> I am not claiming that there is any discrimination going on, just  
> that when a full class C addresses was allocated for 60k schools  
> and an unknown number of end-users then there is a real shortage  
> starting.

When I hold my breath that doesn't mean there is no oxygen in the  
air... In many places it's hard to get addresses, but that's not  
because there aren't any or they're impossible to get. Often, ISPs  
limit address use by customers to make them buy more expensive  
services, or to avoid having to do something they don't want to do,  
such as pay their ISP or pay RIR fees.

> No, we are not out of addresses yet, and yes CIDR has done wonders  
> for holding back the tide, but we do really need the additional  
> addresses of IPv6 - not to mention the other advances that are  
> included.

> But there is a perception (mostly in the US) that there is no  
> problem and it will be too expensive to upgrade/replace existing  
> hardware.

I think that's a fairy tale too. What kind of gear that you can buy  
today can't do IPv6? And how much of that is un-upgradable? Basically  
only stuff that has hardware support for IPv4 processing built in,  
such as multilayer switches, some routers and some things like load  
balancers. If you simply only buy new gear that either supports IPv6  
or can be upgraded to support it, then it really doesn't have to cost  
much as you'll do upgrades, reconfigurations and training sessions  
anyway over the course of some years so adding IPv6 to that doesn't  
make it much more expensive.

For end-users it may be necessary to buy a new cable/ADSL modem but  
these don't cost anything anyway so that's not a huge deal.