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IPv6 Deployment Picking Up Speed

Posted by Unknown on from the no-ipv4-for-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Internet's addressing authority (IANA) ran out of IPv4 Internet addresses in early 2011. The IPv6 protocol (now 15 years old) was designed exactly for this scenario, as it provides many more addresses than our foreseeable addressing needs. However, IPv6 deployment has so far been dismal, accounting for 1% of total traffic (the high-end of estimates). A recent paper by researchers at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data analysis (CAIDA) indicates that IPv6 deployment may be picking up at last. The paper, published at the Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) shows that the IPv6 network shows signs of maturing, with its properties starting to resemble the deployed IPv4 network. Deployment appears to be non-uniform, however; while the 'core' of the network appears to be ready, networks at the 'edges' are lacking. There are geographical differences too — Europe and the Asia Pacific region are ahead of North America."

13 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Stop the Presses! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    North America fails to take up an International Standard.

    That's NEVER happen. Except with everything.

    1. Re:Stop the Presses! by Creepy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      To be fair, America has adopted standards, but hasn't always standardized on them, and sometimes invents a standard that is outdated by the time the rest of the world adopts it.

      For instance, metric is used in hospitals, at NASA, in many sciences, etc. It was even taught in school until Ronald Reagan in his infinite wisdom and reverence decided America was too f**king stupid to learn it (sorry about the sarcasm injection - it was a REALLY bad time for me to switch, as I was half way into learning metric when it happened and we all of a sudden had to learn these nonsensical English units - I'm still all for switching to metric).

      CDMA predates GSM, and some providers bet big on it early in America. Nothing America can really do about it except wait for it to age and be replaced, hopefully with an international standard. Data already has been merged with LTE.

      Almost all cable providers use DOCSYS international standard.

      IPv6 is supported by some ISPs and CLECs, but many that supported PPPoE like mine bought IPv4 only hardware. The former owner of this hardware, Qwest, said they would never implement IPv6. Their current owner, CenturyLink, is rolling out IPv6 support, but only currently in areas that were not formerly Qwest. Meanwhile, my IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are registered and just waiting for IPv6 to be supported to go live (I hacked the router to get its IPv6 address just in case this is a server only issue - the underlying hardware supports it, just not the PPPoE connection).

  2. 2013 could be... by Bradmont · · Score: 5, Funny

    The year of IPv6 on the desktop!

    1. Re:2013 could be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      If we make it past December 21st...

    2. Re:2013 could be... by NatasRevol · · Score: 4, Funny

      It looks cool.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  3. Come on slashdot ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is not what I expected from you when facebook and google enabled it long ago ...

    1. Re:Come on slashdot ... by canadiannomad · · Score: 5, Informative

      The problem I have faced is that none of my server ISPs will even let me get an IPv6 address even if I know they have it and I beg. That goes for major service providers too. I'm looking at you Amazon Cloud and RackSpace. Amazon kinda has it, but only if you use one of their load balancers.

      --
      Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
  4. New Rule: by ledow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    New Rule:

    Websites are only allowed to try to garner page-views on IPv6 when all the websites that article is posted on are available over IPv6.

  5. IPv6 was no big deal by Cimexus · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've been on native IPv6 for a couple of years on my home DSL connection. It works very well - only thing I had to do was check the 'enable IPv6' option in my modem/router and everything 'just worked'. It is rather nice not having to deal with NAT and port forwarding etc.

    I'm in Australia (so within the Asia-Pacific/APNIC region, which as the summary mentions, is a bit ahead of the curve when it comes to IPv6 adoption. Most of the major sites are fully IPv6 now too (e.g. all the Google sites, Facebook, etc. etc.) But the point is, done properly, it should be a completely seamless transition to enable dual-stack (and eventually to turn off IPv4, though I'm sure that won't happen for decades!). Hell I usually forget I'm even on IPv6, unless I happen to do a ping/tracert to an IPv6 host and see all those long-ass IPs :)

    C:\>tracert www.google.com

    Tracing route to www.google.com [2404:6800:4006:800::1014] over a maximum of 30 hops:

        1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms gateway [2001:44b8:(snip!)]
        2 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms loop0.lns20.cbr1.internode.on.net [2001:44b8:9010::5]
        3 7 ms * 7 ms gi0-0-2.cor3.cbr1.internode.on.net [2001:44b8:9010:14::1]
        4 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms te6-0-0.bdr1.syd4.internode.on.net [2001:44b8:9010:e::2]
        5 11 ms * 11 ms te0-0-0.bdr1.syd7.internode.on.net [2001:44b8:b070:1::11]
        6 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms gi1-2-121.cor2.syd7.internode.on.net [2001:44b8:b060:121::2]
        7 11 ms * 12 ms gi6-0-0-101.bdr1.syd7.internode.on.net [2001:44b8:b070:104::1]
        8 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms 2001:4860:1:1:0:1283:0:4
        9 13 ms 13 ms 12 ms 2001:4860:0:1::1fb
      10 13 ms 12 ms 11 ms 2404:6800:4006:800::1014

  6. Provider slowness. by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IPv6 Capable operating systems: check.
    IPv6 Capable router: check.
    IPv6 Capable cable modem: check.
    IPv6 Capable internet service: .........

    Maybe one of these years the cable company will get this figured out, sigh.

  7. the real game changer: 4G by anarcat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The game changer here is that US cell phone companies have finally figured out that 4 layers of NAT isn't exactly a great way to manage a growing network, and are switching to IPv6 for their 4G networks. That is millions of customers right there, using IPv6 without even knowing about it.

    Pieces are falling into place, it's just a matter of time now. And if you lobby your ISP instead of complaining about it, you may get it native too soon enough.

    BTW: for those worried about the switch, let me just mention that both ipv6.google.com and www.kame.net (common test IPv6 addresses) are reachable in *less* latency and *less* hops than their ipv4 counterparts. IPv6 rocks.

    --
    Semantics is the gravity of abstraction
  8. Hah! by Shaman · · Score: 3, Informative

    Companies are still shipping network gear that is IPv4 only. Find me a fixed-wireless device that supports IPv6! Sure they're layer 2 devices, but the units themselves don't have IPv6 addressability.

    IPv6 will take a long, long time. Maybe 10 years for major crossover. The fanbois and the advocates get shriller every day, but moving to IPv6 - even dual-stack - from an existing network is currently *hard*.

    --
    ...Steve
  9. Non-sensical customary units of fail by Artemis3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I learned under metric, for me those "customary" units of height are very hard to grasp.

    In metric, everything is in tens, you add or subtract zeros, thats it.

    A meter contains 10 decimeters (rarely used), a decimeter contains 10 centimeters, a centimeter contains 10 milliliters, etc.
    http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/prefixes.html

    Customary/Imperial units are a mess, and to make matters worse, you don't use a single unit but TWO different ones for measuring things (feet AND inches?). What the hell is an inch? half a feet? quarter? decimal? no... its freaking 1/12. OF COURSE you don't fit 12 feet in a yard, that would be too easy, its 3... AND you also don't fit 12 pica in an inch, but 6...

    To make sense of your nonsense, we have to convert to a single unit first (eg. inches), and THEN move to metric, that is not a trivial mental operation for many.

    Another American annoyance is paper sheet sizes. But there are many more areas for frustration in those outdated customs.

    Let them sink in their isolation, is what we say here.

    --
    Artix
    Your Linux, your init.