5 ms·

80% in 2018 160% in 2019 Apologies for being flippant. Just making the point that you're extrapolating without spending time on the likely shape of that adopt

80% in 2018 160% in 2019 Apologies for being flippant. Just making the point that you're extrapolating without spending time on the likely shape of that adoption. It seems more likely that this is an S-curve, and that we'll continue to see IPv4 traffic for the next decade, maybe longer.

AndrewDucker 12y ago
I think it pretty likely that once we reach 50% it will switch from "That thing that techies care about" to "Something people assume everyone has", and that any remaining ISPs that don't provide IPv6 will rush to get it done. I'm sure that IPv4 support will continue for a fair while though.
- richmarr 12y ago
  What's the mechanism that makes that first company drop support for IPv4? Cost? It feels like it'd need to be a dramatic cost saving in order to kick in at 50% adoption.
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    Look further down in this thread and there are already users in Germany being signed up on DS-Lite. Their only IPv4 access is behind carrier-grade NAT. Anything that wants to make a direct inbound connection and doesn't want to proxy (VOIP, games etc) will need to support IPv6
  - mgbmtl 12y ago
    As with https, moving forward has a cost, but at some point, the cost of staying compatible with old protocols is higher. Before the switch, you have to deal with training staff for the new tech. Once the switch starts happening, you need to train the staff to deal with the risks of keeping the old tech. For example, I find it easier to have an https-only web infrastructure. Too bad for old deprecated browsers who cannot support proper encryption (and therefore become a security risk for me, and a waste of time to support). Dual protocols (v4 and v6) take more time and money to manage. Initial training can be harsh. Some first-gen hardware was terrible. However, now that it's done, I can't wait to switch off IPv4.
  - AndrewDucker 12y ago
    See the graph here: http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html ARIN is going to run entirely out of IPv4 addresses for general distribution in April of 2015. It's not going to be long before you'll need IPv6 if you want to do anything peer-to-peer.
    - ufmace 12y ago
      I thought that was like the Voyager leaving the solar system story that keeps repeating every few years but never seems to actually happen. Only meant partly in jest. When they start to get really rare, the price of IPv4 blocks will keep going up, until some institutional holders of large blocks start selling. It could take quite a long time before it's really gone for good.
      - gsnedders 12y ago
        Because while it might be a lot of effort for the large institutional holders when they've historically allocated stuff assuming they have the whole huge block, eventually the price-cost trade-off will reach a point where the address space is valuable enough.
  - lmm 12y ago
    ISPs are already dropping support for "real" IPv4 and only offering NAT. At the other end, there are already cloud providers that charge extra for an IPv4 address on your server. A couple of years ago my ISP dropped their usenet servers - not enough people were using them to justify the cost/maintenance effort. I expect we'll eventually see the same thing with IPv4; not for ten or twenty years perhaps, but once "everything" is using IPv6, it becomes a cost center.
  - TorKlingberg 12y ago
    I imagine people will start deploying multiple HTTPS sites on a single IPv4 address but with individual IPv6 addresses. People still using only IPv4 on Windows XP with Internet Explorer will not be able to access those sites (no SNI), but they will soon be a tiny minority.
  - sp332 12y ago
    Selling large contiguous blocks of IPv4 addresses can be quite lucrative.
  - X-Istence 12y ago
    The inability to get IPv4 space is going to be a big motivator ;-) Already seeing stuff like that happening in certain asian countries, where companies are only available over IPv6.
- grecy 12y ago
  > Any remaining ISPs that don't provide IPv6 will rush to get it done. You give people a lot of credit. I work at a large ISP/Telco, we just got a new Director of "Core/IP"... in the first meeting the new director attended we started talking about IPv6 initiatives and the new Director interrupted us all and said "Wait. What's IPv6?" (They were serious)
  - Apofis 12y ago
    How is that even possible? How does someone get that title and not know what IPv6 is? Did you guys reach into the 90's to hire him?
    - grecy 12y ago
      I know.. this is what I face every day. They hire managers and Directors who will do what the people above them say. The people above them have even less technical know-how, so it's not like they can vet potential candidates.

AndrewDucker 12y ago

I think it pretty likely that once we reach 50% it will switch from "That thing that techies care about" to "Something people assume everyone has", and that any remaining ISPs that don't provide IPv6 will rush to get it done. I'm sure that IPv4 support will continue for a fair while though.

richmarr 12y ago
What's the mechanism that makes that first company drop support for IPv4? Cost? It feels like it'd need to be a dramatic cost saving in order to kick in at 50% adoption.
- kalleboo 12y ago
  Look further down in this thread and there are already users in Germany being signed up on DS-Lite. Their only IPv4 access is behind carrier-grade NAT. Anything that wants to make a direct inbound connection and doesn't want to proxy (VOIP, games etc) will need to support IPv6
- mgbmtl 12y ago
  As with https, moving forward has a cost, but at some point, the cost of staying compatible with old protocols is higher. Before the switch, you have to deal with training staff for the new tech. Once the switch starts happening, you need to train the staff to deal with the risks of keeping the old tech. For example, I find it easier to have an https-only web infrastructure. Too bad for old deprecated browsers who cannot support proper encryption (and therefore become a security risk for me, and a waste of time to support). Dual protocols (v4 and v6) take more time and money to manage. Initial training can be harsh. Some first-gen hardware was terrible. However, now that it's done, I can't wait to switch off IPv4.
- AndrewDucker 12y ago
  See the graph here: http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html ARIN is going to run entirely out of IPv4 addresses for general distribution in April of 2015. It's not going to be long before you'll need IPv6 if you want to do anything peer-to-peer.
  - ufmace 12y ago
    I thought that was like the Voyager leaving the solar system story that keeps repeating every few years but never seems to actually happen. Only meant partly in jest. When they start to get really rare, the price of IPv4 blocks will keep going up, until some institutional holders of large blocks start selling. It could take quite a long time before it's really gone for good.
    - gsnedders 12y ago
      Because while it might be a lot of effort for the large institutional holders when they've historically allocated stuff assuming they have the whole huge block, eventually the price-cost trade-off will reach a point where the address space is valuable enough.
- lmm 12y ago
  ISPs are already dropping support for "real" IPv4 and only offering NAT. At the other end, there are already cloud providers that charge extra for an IPv4 address on your server. A couple of years ago my ISP dropped their usenet servers - not enough people were using them to justify the cost/maintenance effort. I expect we'll eventually see the same thing with IPv4; not for ten or twenty years perhaps, but once "everything" is using IPv6, it becomes a cost center.
- TorKlingberg 12y ago
  I imagine people will start deploying multiple HTTPS sites on a single IPv4 address but with individual IPv6 addresses. People still using only IPv4 on Windows XP with Internet Explorer will not be able to access those sites (no SNI), but they will soon be a tiny minority.
- sp332 12y ago
  Selling large contiguous blocks of IPv4 addresses can be quite lucrative.
- X-Istence 12y ago
  The inability to get IPv4 space is going to be a big motivator ;-) Already seeing stuff like that happening in certain asian countries, where companies are only available over IPv6.
grecy 12y ago
> Any remaining ISPs that don't provide IPv6 will rush to get it done. You give people a lot of credit. I work at a large ISP/Telco, we just got a new Director of "Core/IP"... in the first meeting the new director attended we started talking about IPv6 initiatives and the new Director interrupted us all and said "Wait. What's IPv6?" (They were serious)
- Apofis 12y ago
  How is that even possible? How does someone get that title and not know what IPv6 is? Did you guys reach into the 90's to hire him?
  - grecy 12y ago
    I know.. this is what I face every day. They hire managers and Directors who will do what the people above them say. The people above them have even less technical know-how, so it's not like they can vet potential candidates.