Worldwide IPv6 Adoption: Where Do We Stand Today?

skade88 writes "IPv4 is much like a limited natural resource; it can't last forever. The well of new IPv4 addresses is already running dry in many parts of the world. The solution to this problem, which was presented decades ago, is to switch to IPv6. With peak IPv4 far behind us, why do we still see limited IPv6 adoption? Ars takes a good look at where we are and where we are going with the future of IP addresses, the internet and you. Quoting: 'As with all technology, IPv6 gets better and cheaper over time. And just like with houses, people prefer waiting rather than buying when prices are dropping. To make matters worse, if you're the only one adopting IPv6, this buys you very little. You can only use the new protocol once the people you communicate with have upgraded as well. Worse still, you can't get rid of IPv4 until everyone you communicate with has adopted IPv6. And the pain of the shrinking IPv4 supplies versus the pain of having to upgrade equipment and software varies for different groups of Internet users. So some people want to move to IPv6 and leave IPv4 behind sooner rather than later, but others plan on sticking with IPv4 until the bitter end. As a result, we have a nasty Nash equilibrium: nobody can improve their own situation by unilaterally adopting IPv6.'"

Comments

IPv6 isn't the solution

[Alomex]

The solution to this problem, which was presented decades ago, is to switch to IPv6.

If IPv6 were the solution we would have already switched to it. IPv6 was stillborn, pretty much starting from the moment it wasn't backward compatible with IPv4. It would have been trivial to keep the current IPv4 address space and dedicate some of the multicast or reserved address space (class D and E) and a dedicated port (say the unassigned port 6) to IPv6.

A message destined to an IPv6 128 bit destination could be sent to the 32 bit prefix port 6 or up stream encapsulated to a 236.*.*.*-246.*.*.* destination.

Each node along the way is then allowed to open the encapsulated IPv4 packet to extract the IPv6 headers, if IPv6 capable, or treat it like an IPv4 packet and pass it along to its IPv4 destination which is always an IPv6 capable node.

This node then must open the encapsulated package and further process it as needed.