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I've pondered the IPv4 issue a lot, having recently acquired a /24 block for running an Anycast network (blog post coming soon). People have asked me my though
by kyledrake 10y ago
I've pondered the IPv4 issue a lot, having recently acquired a /24 block for running an Anycast network (blog post coming soon).
People have asked me my thoughts on IPv6 adoption, and I have to honestly say I'm pretty bearish on IPv6 being quickly adopted. I try to enable IPv6 on all my friends' routers, but even today, many routers, though they support 6 (notable exception being DD-WRT.. WTF), don't enable it by default, which means they don't enable the dual-stack configuration needed for transition. People then place these routers in a dusty area under their computers or behind their couches, where they sit, basically untouched, for 10+ years until they blow up and require replacement.
The people I've talked to that happen to control a lot of IPv4 addresses tell me that even at the current ~$10-12/ip strike price, nobody is interested in selling because the IPs are more valuable to them for use with datacenters and leasing than for selling them at auctions. And nobody's putting pressure on the people that own huge IPv4 subnets (and I genuinely doubt use all of it) to start splitting them up and releasing them. Not to name names, but the original developers of the Internet come to mind (huge research universities like MIT).
As such, I'm expecting the price of IPv4 addresses to increase substantially over the next 10 years, and I'm really not anticipating that price to drop for longer than that even. Because at the end of the day, if you want to support everybody, you need 4. And even today, dual stack is not the default option (despite ISPs like Comcast being ready for it). IMHO, If you need IPv4s for something like an Anycast network or a hosting service, the time to get them is now.
As for IPv6 transition, the best way to improve this problem is to do your part to get ready for it: https://blog.apnic.net/2016/05/04/you-have-ipv6-turn-it-on/ https://blog.apnic.net/2016/05/04/you-have-ipv6-turn-it-on/
- johnbatch 10y agoSometimes last year it looks like Xerox split the 13.0.0.0/8 Selling a /11 to Microsoft (13.64.0.0/11) and a /14 to Salesforce (13.108.0.0/14)
- kyledrake 10y agoWhich means it won't be available for people that want to run their own IP subnets. I doubt they'll be splitting it into /24-/16s and reselling it anytime soon.
- wmf 10y agoThere are currently over 2,000 /24 equivalents for sale: https://www.arin.net/resources/transfer_listing/listings.txt https://www.arin.net/resources/transfer_listing/listings.txt
- joshstrange 10y agoAre you sure about DD-WRT? I found this https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/IPv6#Enabling_IPv6_Support https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/IPv6#Enabling_IPv6_Sup...
- wmf 10y agoLet's count the ways this is broken: IPv6 is off by default (and it sounds like some builds don't have it at all). To enable it, you have to enable two settings (presumably if you only enable one you'll end up with half-broken IPv6). Firewalling is not included. There's no mention of prefix delegation, but there's plenty of instructions for configuring deprecated 6to4 or deprecated tunnel brokers.
- kyledrake 10y agoYeah, this is beyond broken. On my DLink router at home, I had to literally click one "setup" button to get IPv6 working. That's how it should work: either be very simple, or work by default out of the box (preferred).
- mgbmtl 10y agoMost people run the modem/router combo that their ISP provides them. The ISP can flash that modem remotely to upgrade it to IPv6. As far as I know, that's how Comcast in the US managed to deploy ipv6 massively. It often surprised me that in some small US towns, I'd be in AirBNBs or B&B, and they had IPv6. In my neighbourhood in Canada, looking at the wifi routers, 80% of my neighbours are running the default configuration of their ISP. Also, people need to replace their modems more often than we think. In the past 5 years we had the switch from 5mbps DSL to FTTO (25-30mbps) and now the switch to FTTH. A neighbour switched from 5mbps DSL to FTTH, for basically the same price (but the same ridiculously low monthly quota). He's using FTTH for an empty house to connect his alarm system to the monitoring company. In 6-12 months (rumours were 2017-Q2 unless they * again), when Bell finally decides to enable IPv6, that network will be IPv6-enabled.