Why do we still need IPv4 when we are migrating to IPv6...

[Anfinsen, Ragnar]

On 12.02.15, 22.53, "Tore Anderson" <tore at fud.no> wrote:



>There's a non-zero amount of end customers who *do* care about IPv6.
>After all, you do have a opt-in service which several thousand of your
>customers did actually opt in to - so it would seem to me that several
>thousands of your own customers disagree with your statement above.
>
>In the same way, you in all likelihood have a non-zero amount of end
>customers who do care about having a public IPv4 address all to
>themselves. If you did make this an opt-in feature, I'm sure you'd have
>many thousands of users opting in to that, too.

Compared to the amount of customers, only 1,6% of all our customer having 
the opt-in option have done so for IPv6. Back in the days when we where 
doing CGN (yes we have done it for more than 10 years), around 25% of our 
customers chose to opt-in for a public IPv4 address. The main reason for 
this was that CGN did disrupt their service. Typical examples where OTT 
SIP services that did not support STUN, customers who wanted to have their 
own server at home, gamers and more.


So I disagree with your statements. 25% of the customer base don't care 
about addressing, but they do care about connectivity, and as long as 
there are no perceived differences between IPv4 and IPv6. The 1,6% who 
have chosen to opt-in for IPv6 are the geeks and the curious people.

>But if you flip it around, there's a non-zero amount of end customers
>who do not care about neither having an exclusive public IPv4 address
>nor about having IPv6. If I were to venture a guess, that group would
>constitute the majority of your customers. Reclaiming those addresses
>would likely allow you to postpone your next IPv4 purchase quite a
>while, so I'd give that approach serious consideration if I were you.

With reference to my statement above, reclaiming is not something you can 
do without the customer having a choice, and who would like to get their 
services degraded? The marketing and sales people would have to be in on 
it, but they do not care about IP addresses, only service quality. I am 
not discussing if you should by addresses or not, but quite the opposite. 
My management team is wondering why we need to still do IPv4 now when IPv6 
is just down the road.

>Every service that's available over 4G mobile networks is available
>over 3G as well, but even so you might have noticed how the Competition
>Authority recently reprimanted the MVNO One Call for advertising their
>3G-only service as being «equally good» as the (4G-capable) competition.

I'm not sure it is constructive to compare 3G vs. 4G with IPv4 vs. IPv6.

>There's also now data that suggest that IPv6 has over the last few
>years overtaken IPv4 as the performance leader, so even if you moderate
>the «premium» claim to say that an IPv4-only is «equally good» as
>dualstack, you'd still be on shaky ground. As an absolute minimum you
>need feature parity with the competition before you can credibly claim
>to have a «premium» service, IMHO.
>
>http://www.slideshare.net/apnic/2014-0917v6performance-1410222276

If the difference had been significant, I would agree, but the differences 
are so small that a normal customer will not perceive it.

<stating the obvious>
Keep in mind that IPv4 and IPv6 are only the roadsigns, and as long as the 
roadsigns are there and readable, it does not matter for the customer if 
it is written in IPv4 or IPv6. He still finds the way to the server.
</stating the obvious>

Just to be clear. I am not speaking against IPv6, quite the contrary, as 
you know I have been a pro IPv6 tech for a long time, but I still have my 
management team to deal with. And we are not saying "no IPv6", we have 
rather moved on to "no IPv4?". I think it is to early, and CGN will 
degrade our service for 25% of our customers, which is a bit to high as of 
today. I fully agree that we need more eyeballs to help the content 
providers start doing IPv6 in scale, and trust me, we are moving towards 
that goal quickly.

/Ragnar