7 ms·

IPv6 is here

85 points by devicenull 16y ago

CrLf 16y ago
Even after innumberable discussions about this subject, I still don't get why people are so afraid of NAT. The main concern seems to be about ISPs starting to NAT everybody and their dog. Well, guess what, they just can't do that. For starters because their users would get very angry when their torrents stop working, and would jump ship for any other ISP that announces that it either doesn't do NAT or has implemented IPv6. There is still a huge amount of work that can be done to compress the usage of v4 address space. Maybe not much that the RIRs or the ISPs can do, but as the cost of owning a static IPv4 address goes up (and I believe that it will go _way_ up), end users will start compressing their public services into fewer addresses and giving back small subnets to their providers to reduce costs. I mean, who the hell needs to have a mail server and a web server in two different public addresses when they can just do port-forwarding over a single address? (And since most servers are on DMZs with private addressing, they are mostly doing it already, it's just a matter of renumbering.) The case most likely to go NAT is also the most likely to go IPv6: mobile devices. These are mostly behind NAT already, and going IPv6 would actually reduce costs for ISPs. It would also put ISPs in the track for more extensive IPv6, since the major problem now is that people have little knowledge of how IPv6 works and ISPs are trying to avoid the pain. The issue is, of course, that 99.9% of mobile devices don't support dual-stack and even in a pure v6 configuration don't actually work properly. For this I predict that in 10 years the move to IPv6 will still be half-way. Considering that we are so close to IPv4 depletion and there is virtually _no_ IPv6 to be seen, I'm being faily optimistic.
- count 16y ago
  How will the cost of owning a v4 space go up? It's yours, the price is set, and ARIN/IANA et al have not mentioned any intention of increasing price.
  - devicenull 16y ago
    For people that don't actually have their own allocation from a RIR, the price will likely go up. It's a matter of supply and demand, their provider is going to have a shrinking pool of IP addresses from which to assign new ones to servers. It seems likely to me they will start charging additional fees for more IP addresses.
Jem 16y ago
I only have a basic understanding of IPv4 vs IPv6, so can someone explain to me: a) what impact will this have on me as Joe Public internet user? b) what impact will this have on me as a web developer? Or point me to suitable websites that explain in quick skimmable chunks...
- count 16y ago
  a) Eventually (most likely next year or later), if you do not have IPv6 connectivity, there will be new content and sites added to the global internet that you will have no way of accessing at all from your v4 connected computer. a2) Alternatively, in a year or so, you get service from a brand new ISP that has no v4 connectivity (so, you are v6 native), and you cannot access anything on the v4 Internet around the world (e.g. most things today). b) Don't store IP addresses as 32bit integers, or as 15 character strings. Be aware that geolocation services probably don't do well with v6 addresses. Make sure your deployment platform has the infrastructure in place to serve both v4 and v6 customers (or at least v6 after a year or two) - AAAA dns records, etc.
  - e40 16y ago
    Why would a new ISP have no v4 connectivity? They'd be connected to someone, and they would likely have v4 connectivity. Wouldn't they be able to have a private network connection to them (10.x.x.x)?
    - count 16y ago
      You can't eBGP route private addresses. (well, you can, but if you do, you should be shot). The new ISP would need it's own space to announce (it's not much of an ISP if it's got no customers to give addresses too, so it needs addresses. It's also not much of an ISP if it's only got one upstream, so it'll need PI (provider independent) space, allocated to it from it's RIR (ARIN, RIPE, etc). And that'll all be gone soon :)
  - Jem 16y ago
    Thank you!
wmf 16y ago
IPv6 is not here; that's the problem. This is a momentous announcement, though.
- count 16y ago
  IPv6 IS here, I believe you meant to say it's just not evenly distributed yet!
benwerd 16y ago
The final paragraph is somewhat ominous: "APNIC reiterates that IPv6 is the only means available for the sustained ongoing growth of the Internet, and urges all Members of the Internet industry to move quickly towards its deployment." In other words, as wmf has already said, IPv6 isn't here. But it needs to be, and soon, otherwise the game is very rapidly going to be up.
chair6 16y ago
Here, yes, but not particularly wide-spread and slowly becoming more necessary. A little tool I built last week .. is your site IPv6 ready? http://ready.chair6.net http://ready.chair6.net
- rmoriz 16y ago
  http://sixy.ch/ http://sixy.ch/ has a nice public database of V6 ready sites and a tool to check/add
- kitchen 16y ago
  I like it. You should also add checks for ipv6 glue records. I advertise ipv6 dns servers but I do not yet have glue, so you still need to connect to my dns servers over ipv4. According to your tool I just have to convince google to add AAAA records to their MX targets and I'm set, but I'm not :)
  - chair6 16y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion.. I added a few more DNS-related checks. I think I have the tests/logic right but please let me know if you spot any errors.
- davros 16y ago
  None of the first four urls I randomly tried slashdot, ibm, dell, ycombinator have AAAA records. IPv6 is not here and won't be for a long time. While v6 may be better in some circumstances, it is worse in others. I'll be keeping my offices behind NAT routers thank you!
tptacek 16y ago
IPv6 is in no sense here. The fiat allocators can exhaust their address space completely and the Internet will continue to function indefinitely; it will simply become more expensive (first marginally, and then significantly) to hold a static address. There are deep problems with universal deployment of IPv6 far beyond simply getting people to throw a switch; the number of popular software packages that will malfunction when addresses cease being representable in scalar integers is large.
- iloveponies 16y ago
  The internet can only continue to function "indefinitely" as you so put it unless there are no further end points created or demand comes to a grinding halt by users, servers, anything with a public facing IP address. However, that's not the case and many new devices are requiring public facing addresses, and RIR's typically do not give out new blocks until ~3/4 or more (ARIN requires 80%) of the last block they were given is fully utilised. Now for ISP's issuing dynamic assignment to customers that may only happen during peak periods - but if they don't have addresses to give, they along with everyone else that requires public facing IP addresses have two options: more NAT, or IPv6. Quite frankly the idea of being inside an ISP size NAT like many mobile broadband users are on my home DSL connection is quite an unappealing idea. There are many problems of deploying v6, nobody is saying it'll be a walk in the park, but end devices (like my €100 Nokia dumb phone and my desktop) support it + can also support transitional methods like 6to4, Teredo etc. Tier 1 providers like NTT have been offering it for years - the problem is now the bit in between the end user and tier 1. I think DSL providers with ancient, non-software upgradable DSLAMs (I'm looking at you Ericsson), and the hundreds of millions of home routers out there doing nothing but IPv4 NAT are the bigger challenge than a few bits of code parsing a longer address.
  - pyre 16y ago
    I think that getting home users to upgrade their home routers is easier than getting all of the various software packages out there upgraded to work with IPv6. Getting ISPs to upgrade expensive hardware is another issue...
dholowiski 16y ago
Ok, ipv6 is here. Or not. Anyway, when is Amazon going to support ipv6 on ec2?
- rmoriz 16y ago
  While Amazon still has no native IPv6 you can at least use 6to4 for now to evaluate/test, see my guide and script at: http://binarymentalist.com/post/2984855918/try-ipv6-on-amazon-ec2-using-6to4 http://binarymentalist.com/post/2984855918/try-ipv6-on-amazo...
- 16s 16y ago
  Setup a tunnel. There are many great tunnel brokers available. It's free too. Then add a AAAA (DNS) record for your website. IPv6 isn't nearly so scary once people see that the big bad hex numbers can have names too: $ dig +short AAAA ip6.16s.us 2001:4830:1600:2e4::2
StavrosK 16y ago
As I understand it, this is the last few IPv4 blocks being handed out. This leads people to conclude that IPv6 is here? If anything, it seems to me that it's "IPv4 is gone", and we need to take steps to ensure that that wasn't the last thing we had.
jedsmith 16y ago
This needs a better headline, given the gravity of the announcement. IPv6 is by no means here, and really has nothing to do with this news item. To me, "IPv6 is here" says absolutely nothing about the real news here - APNIC having received two /8s (and one forthcoming), making them the recipient of three out of seven of the remaining /8s. The gravity of this announcement is that we are now in the Exhaustion Phase of the ICANN policy on IPv4 depletion: http://www.icann.org/en/general/allocation-remaining-ipv4-space.htm http://www.icann.org/en/general/allocation-remaining-ipv4-sp... If anything, it means we need to boogie on IPv6 now, but that's not new (and is only tangentially related to the announcement).
- dholowiski 16y ago
  Definetley, inaccurate headline. The problem is, this is a historic moment, it's just extremely difficult to explain why. This is more lime the beginning of the end. It's going to be long and drawn out.
  - devicenull 16y ago
    I won't really deny that. I can't really come up with a catchy title for what actually happened today, but I feel it's pretty important.
    - jefe78 16y ago
      "The end is nigh...for IP4!" perhaps?
rbranson 16y ago
We are by no means out of IPv4 addresses. The next step is that all of the entities who needlessly snapped up /8 space early on and sat on it for so long will be selling it off. The list includes GE, Xerox, IBM, HP, Apple, MIT, Ford, Halliburton, Prudential Insurance, Bell-Northern, Merck, Eli Lilly, the DoD/military (who has 13), USPS, and CSC. Just half of this space is 234m IPv4 addresses.
- bodyfour 16y ago
  Sigh... this idea has to get thrown out every time there's an IPv4-exhaustion discussion. I guess I'll be the one to do the public service of debunking it this time. * You can assume that each of the /8s have plenty of infrastructure relying on them, meaning $millions in migration costs. Do you think that the holders will just give them up tomorrow, or do you think its more likely they'll sick some lawyers on the problem? So even if you CAN get them back it'll take years. * For each /8 you successfully extract this way, you buy the world mere WEEKS of time. IPv4 allocation isn't completely efficient -- we all know that. The real problem, however, isn't efficiency. 2^32 is just too small of a number.
  - count 16y ago
    Also, remember that some of those large companies are USING those /8's internally. No private addresses, just unreachable /8 public IPs - the way the internet is supposed to work. We need to stop beating a dead horse and start deploying AAAA and v6 across the board. We used to only have 3 network sizes too (/8, /16, and /24), but we managed as an internet community to get rid of classful crap and move onto VLSM and CIDR.
  - Luyt 16y ago
    Although the /8s have an entire infrastructure relying on their current situation, it is not unthinkable that the economical advantage of making subsets of their space available to third parties will become more attractive than just letting it sit idle. It might even justify the migration costs. So maybe we'll see parts of IBM, Apple and HP transform to IP/DNS providers. Apart from that, it's not a question of having the /8s 'give back' IP adresses -- it's about them monetizing their available IPv4 space, out of their own volition. Whether that relieves the IPv4 shortage for weeks or months doesn't really matter. What matters is what value they can extract from it.
steadicat 16y ago
Is nobody else afraid that instead of IPv6 we're now going to get more and more layers of NAT? Sure, for us geeks that's totally unthinkable... no servers, no P2P?!? But most users, who are content with just web & email, will probably never notice the difference. ISPs will surely find it easier to turn NAT on than to switch to IPv6, and the backlash might be close to nonexistent.
- SoftwareMaven 16y ago
  BitTorrent might save the day on that one. It is one of the few things that will be impacted negatively for "normal" users.
- wmf 16y ago
  It's not clear that NAT is cheaper than IPv6; huge NAT boxes are pretty expensive.
- drdaeman 16y ago
  There will be NATs, one way or another. Nobody plans to start everything from scratch, so IPv6-to-IPv4 gateways (NAT64) seem inevitable.
ErrantX 16y ago
This might be a stupid idea, so feel free to roundly berate me, but... Given that a switch to IPv6 has potential to cause widespread problems, and that we might be facing such a switch before they are ironed out.. Can we not simply update IPv4 and add a new octet to the address space? So 255.255.255.255.255, then call everything distributed so far 000.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and make a start on the 001.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx address space. I appreciate that we would need to update a lot of software to handle the new octet, but I can't help feeling that would be much easier to do (with the advantage of easier "failing gracefully" / backward support). But networking ain't my thing :)
- jwatzman 16y ago
  As I understand it, the problem for IPv6 is with existing routing hardware and with testing. So if you're going to go through all the effort to add a new octet (which requires changing the IP packet format to allow for the extra space, for example), then you might as well go all the way to IPv6 and solve the problem once and for all.
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    Ah, the IP packet format - hadn't considered that aspect, cheers. As you say - wouldn't make sense.
    - pyre 16y ago
      Not just the IP packet format. Most software ends up storing IPv4 ip addresses in a 32-bit integer (because it fits exactly). All of those pieces of software would need to be updated to work with IPv4's 'new ocetet' as well. As the other poster stated. If everything needs to be upgraded, then might as well do it right the first time.
AliCollins 16y ago
So when does the entire internet fall apart then?! Millennium bug, anyone..??!
pinko 16y ago
If people are really interested in speeding IPv6 adoption, the fastest way might be for government and/or industry to subsidize IPv6-only broadband for consumers (via existing ISPs). Imagine $1-5/month DSL to your home, price-locked for 3 years--except it's IPv6-only. Lots of cost-conscious people would sign up or switch to save $xx/month, even if it meant their Internet access was crippled for a while. But it wouldn't be crippled for long, because with such an underserved user base, the major services most people care about (Facebook, Google, etc.) would very quickly start to cater to it (even if the demographics did skew low-income), because it would be a green field and a big opportunity to build longer-term user relationships to monetize down the road.

85 points by devicenull 16y ago

CrLf 16y ago

Even after innumberable discussions about this subject, I still don't get why people are so afraid of NAT. The main concern seems to be about ISPs starting to NAT everybody and their dog. Well, guess what, they just can't do that. For starters because their users would get very angry when their torrents stop working, and would jump ship for any other ISP that announces that it either doesn't do NAT or has implemented IPv6. There is still a huge amount of work that can be done to compress the usage of v4 address space. Maybe not much that the RIRs or the ISPs can do, but as the cost of owning a static IPv4 address goes up (and I believe that it will go _way_ up), end users will start compressing their public services into fewer addresses and giving back small subnets to their providers to reduce costs. I mean, who the hell needs to have a mail server and a web server in two different public addresses when they can just do port-forwarding over a single address? (And since most servers are on DMZs with private addressing, they are mostly doing it already, it's just a matter of renumbering.) The case most likely to go NAT is also the most likely to go IPv6: mobile devices. These are mostly behind NAT already, and going IPv6 would actually reduce costs for ISPs. It would also put ISPs in the track for more extensive IPv6, since the major problem now is that people have little knowledge of how IPv6 works and ISPs are trying to avoid the pain. The issue is, of course, that 99.9% of mobile devices don't support dual-stack and even in a pure v6 configuration don't actually work properly. For this I predict that in 10 years the move to IPv6 will still be half-way. Considering that we are so close to IPv4 depletion and there is virtually _no_ IPv6 to be seen, I'm being faily optimistic.

count 16y ago
How will the cost of owning a v4 space go up? It's yours, the price is set, and ARIN/IANA et al have not mentioned any intention of increasing price.
- devicenull 16y ago
  For people that don't actually have their own allocation from a RIR, the price will likely go up. It's a matter of supply and demand, their provider is going to have a shrinking pool of IP addresses from which to assign new ones to servers. It seems likely to me they will start charging additional fees for more IP addresses.

Jem 16y ago

I only have a basic understanding of IPv4 vs IPv6, so can someone explain to me: a) what impact will this have on me as Joe Public internet user? b) what impact will this have on me as a web developer? Or point me to suitable websites that explain in quick skimmable chunks...

count 16y ago
a) Eventually (most likely next year or later), if you do not have IPv6 connectivity, there will be new content and sites added to the global internet that you will have no way of accessing at all from your v4 connected computer. a2) Alternatively, in a year or so, you get service from a brand new ISP that has no v4 connectivity (so, you are v6 native), and you cannot access anything on the v4 Internet around the world (e.g. most things today). b) Don't store IP addresses as 32bit integers, or as 15 character strings. Be aware that geolocation services probably don't do well with v6 addresses. Make sure your deployment platform has the infrastructure in place to serve both v4 and v6 customers (or at least v6 after a year or two) - AAAA dns records, etc.
- e40 16y ago
  Why would a new ISP have no v4 connectivity? They'd be connected to someone, and they would likely have v4 connectivity. Wouldn't they be able to have a private network connection to them (10.x.x.x)?
  - count 16y ago
    You can't eBGP route private addresses. (well, you can, but if you do, you should be shot). The new ISP would need it's own space to announce (it's not much of an ISP if it's got no customers to give addresses too, so it needs addresses. It's also not much of an ISP if it's only got one upstream, so it'll need PI (provider independent) space, allocated to it from it's RIR (ARIN, RIPE, etc). And that'll all be gone soon :)
- Jem 16y ago
  Thank you!

wmf 16y ago

IPv6 is not here; that's the problem. This is a momentous announcement, though.

count 16y ago
IPv6 IS here, I believe you meant to say it's just not evenly distributed yet!

benwerd 16y ago

The final paragraph is somewhat ominous: "APNIC reiterates that IPv6 is the only means available for the sustained ongoing growth of the Internet, and urges all Members of the Internet industry to move quickly towards its deployment." In other words, as wmf has already said, IPv6 isn't here. But it needs to be, and soon, otherwise the game is very rapidly going to be up.

chair6 16y ago

Here, yes, but not particularly wide-spread and slowly becoming more necessary. A little tool I built last week .. is your site IPv6 ready? http://ready.chair6.net http://ready.chair6.net

rmoriz 16y ago
http://sixy.ch/ http://sixy.ch/ has a nice public database of V6 ready sites and a tool to check/add
kitchen 16y ago
I like it. You should also add checks for ipv6 glue records. I advertise ipv6 dns servers but I do not yet have glue, so you still need to connect to my dns servers over ipv4. According to your tool I just have to convince google to add AAAA records to their MX targets and I'm set, but I'm not :)
- chair6 16y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion.. I added a few more DNS-related checks. I think I have the tests/logic right but please let me know if you spot any errors.
davros 16y ago
None of the first four urls I randomly tried slashdot, ibm, dell, ycombinator have AAAA records. IPv6 is not here and won't be for a long time. While v6 may be better in some circumstances, it is worse in others. I'll be keeping my offices behind NAT routers thank you!

tptacek 16y ago

IPv6 is in no sense here. The fiat allocators can exhaust their address space completely and the Internet will continue to function indefinitely; it will simply become more expensive (first marginally, and then significantly) to hold a static address. There are deep problems with universal deployment of IPv6 far beyond simply getting people to throw a switch; the number of popular software packages that will malfunction when addresses cease being representable in scalar integers is large.

iloveponies 16y ago
The internet can only continue to function "indefinitely" as you so put it unless there are no further end points created or demand comes to a grinding halt by users, servers, anything with a public facing IP address. However, that's not the case and many new devices are requiring public facing addresses, and RIR's typically do not give out new blocks until ~3/4 or more (ARIN requires 80%) of the last block they were given is fully utilised. Now for ISP's issuing dynamic assignment to customers that may only happen during peak periods - but if they don't have addresses to give, they along with everyone else that requires public facing IP addresses have two options: more NAT, or IPv6. Quite frankly the idea of being inside an ISP size NAT like many mobile broadband users are on my home DSL connection is quite an unappealing idea. There are many problems of deploying v6, nobody is saying it'll be a walk in the park, but end devices (like my €100 Nokia dumb phone and my desktop) support it + can also support transitional methods like 6to4, Teredo etc. Tier 1 providers like NTT have been offering it for years - the problem is now the bit in between the end user and tier 1. I think DSL providers with ancient, non-software upgradable DSLAMs (I'm looking at you Ericsson), and the hundreds of millions of home routers out there doing nothing but IPv4 NAT are the bigger challenge than a few bits of code parsing a longer address.
- pyre 16y ago
  I think that getting home users to upgrade their home routers is easier than getting all of the various software packages out there upgraded to work with IPv6. Getting ISPs to upgrade expensive hardware is another issue...

dholowiski 16y ago

Ok, ipv6 is here. Or not. Anyway, when is Amazon going to support ipv6 on ec2?

rmoriz 16y ago
While Amazon still has no native IPv6 you can at least use 6to4 for now to evaluate/test, see my guide and script at: http://binarymentalist.com/post/2984855918/try-ipv6-on-amazon-ec2-using-6to4 http://binarymentalist.com/post/2984855918/try-ipv6-on-amazo...
16s 16y ago
Setup a tunnel. There are many great tunnel brokers available. It's free too. Then add a AAAA (DNS) record for your website. IPv6 isn't nearly so scary once people see that the big bad hex numbers can have names too: $ dig +short AAAA ip6.16s.us 2001:4830:1600:2e4::2

StavrosK 16y ago

As I understand it, this is the last few IPv4 blocks being handed out. This leads people to conclude that IPv6 is here? If anything, it seems to me that it's "IPv4 is gone", and we need to take steps to ensure that that wasn't the last thing we had.

jedsmith 16y ago

This needs a better headline, given the gravity of the announcement. IPv6 is by no means here, and really has nothing to do with this news item. To me, "IPv6 is here" says absolutely nothing about the real news here - APNIC having received two /8s (and one forthcoming), making them the recipient of three out of seven of the remaining /8s. The gravity of this announcement is that we are now in the Exhaustion Phase of the ICANN policy on IPv4 depletion: http://www.icann.org/en/general/allocation-remaining-ipv4-space.htm http://www.icann.org/en/general/allocation-remaining-ipv4-sp... If anything, it means we need to boogie on IPv6 now, but that's not new (and is only tangentially related to the announcement).

dholowiski 16y ago
Definetley, inaccurate headline. The problem is, this is a historic moment, it's just extremely difficult to explain why. This is more lime the beginning of the end. It's going to be long and drawn out.
- devicenull 16y ago
  I won't really deny that. I can't really come up with a catchy title for what actually happened today, but I feel it's pretty important.
  - jefe78 16y ago
    "The end is nigh...for IP4!" perhaps?

rbranson 16y ago

We are by no means out of IPv4 addresses. The next step is that all of the entities who needlessly snapped up /8 space early on and sat on it for so long will be selling it off. The list includes GE, Xerox, IBM, HP, Apple, MIT, Ford, Halliburton, Prudential Insurance, Bell-Northern, Merck, Eli Lilly, the DoD/military (who has 13), USPS, and CSC. Just half of this space is 234m IPv4 addresses.

bodyfour 16y ago
Sigh... this idea has to get thrown out every time there's an IPv4-exhaustion discussion. I guess I'll be the one to do the public service of debunking it this time. * You can assume that each of the /8s have plenty of infrastructure relying on them, meaning $millions in migration costs. Do you think that the holders will just give them up tomorrow, or do you think its more likely they'll sick some lawyers on the problem? So even if you CAN get them back it'll take years. * For each /8 you successfully extract this way, you buy the world mere WEEKS of time. IPv4 allocation isn't completely efficient -- we all know that. The real problem, however, isn't efficiency. 2^32 is just too small of a number.
- count 16y ago
  Also, remember that some of those large companies are USING those /8's internally. No private addresses, just unreachable /8 public IPs - the way the internet is supposed to work. We need to stop beating a dead horse and start deploying AAAA and v6 across the board. We used to only have 3 network sizes too (/8, /16, and /24), but we managed as an internet community to get rid of classful crap and move onto VLSM and CIDR.
- Luyt 16y ago
  Although the /8s have an entire infrastructure relying on their current situation, it is not unthinkable that the economical advantage of making subsets of their space available to third parties will become more attractive than just letting it sit idle. It might even justify the migration costs. So maybe we'll see parts of IBM, Apple and HP transform to IP/DNS providers. Apart from that, it's not a question of having the /8s 'give back' IP adresses -- it's about them monetizing their available IPv4 space, out of their own volition. Whether that relieves the IPv4 shortage for weeks or months doesn't really matter. What matters is what value they can extract from it.

steadicat 16y ago

Is nobody else afraid that instead of IPv6 we're now going to get more and more layers of NAT? Sure, for us geeks that's totally unthinkable... no servers, no P2P?!? But most users, who are content with just web & email, will probably never notice the difference. ISPs will surely find it easier to turn NAT on than to switch to IPv6, and the backlash might be close to nonexistent.

SoftwareMaven 16y ago
BitTorrent might save the day on that one. It is one of the few things that will be impacted negatively for "normal" users.
wmf 16y ago
It's not clear that NAT is cheaper than IPv6; huge NAT boxes are pretty expensive.
drdaeman 16y ago
There will be NATs, one way or another. Nobody plans to start everything from scratch, so IPv6-to-IPv4 gateways (NAT64) seem inevitable.

ErrantX 16y ago

This might be a stupid idea, so feel free to roundly berate me, but... Given that a switch to IPv6 has potential to cause widespread problems, and that we might be facing such a switch before they are ironed out.. Can we not simply update IPv4 and add a new octet to the address space? So 255.255.255.255.255, then call everything distributed so far 000.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and make a start on the 001.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx address space. I appreciate that we would need to update a lot of software to handle the new octet, but I can't help feeling that would be much easier to do (with the advantage of easier "failing gracefully" / backward support). But networking ain't my thing :)

jwatzman 16y ago
As I understand it, the problem for IPv6 is with existing routing hardware and with testing. So if you're going to go through all the effort to add a new octet (which requires changing the IP packet format to allow for the extra space, for example), then you might as well go all the way to IPv6 and solve the problem once and for all.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  Ah, the IP packet format - hadn't considered that aspect, cheers. As you say - wouldn't make sense.
  - pyre 16y ago
    Not just the IP packet format. Most software ends up storing IPv4 ip addresses in a 32-bit integer (because it fits exactly). All of those pieces of software would need to be updated to work with IPv4's 'new ocetet' as well. As the other poster stated. If everything needs to be upgraded, then might as well do it right the first time.

AliCollins 16y ago

So when does the entire internet fall apart then?! Millennium bug, anyone..??!

pinko 16y ago

If people are really interested in speeding IPv6 adoption, the fastest way might be for government and/or industry to subsidize IPv6-only broadband for consumers (via existing ISPs). Imagine $1-5/month DSL to your home, price-locked for 3 years--except it's IPv6-only. Lots of cost-conscious people would sign up or switch to save $xx/month, even if it meant their Internet access was crippled for a while. But it wouldn't be crippled for long, because with such an underserved user base, the major services most people care about (Facebook, Google, etc.) would very quickly start to cater to it (even if the demographics did skew low-income), because it would be a green field and a big opportunity to build longer-term user relationships to monetize down the road.