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leibold
MVM
join:2002-07-09
Sunnyvale, CA
Netgear CG3000DCR
ZyXEL P-663HN-51

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leibold to aefstoggaflm

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to aefstoggaflm

Re: [ipv6] Why are ISPs deploying IPv6 now?

I'm sure if follow the trail it is (as often) a money question.

There are now (and probably for a long time to come) sufficient IPv4 addresses to ensure that any business will be able to provide Internet services to the large number of IPv4-only customers in the world. An IPv4-only presence would also of course be sufficient to serve dual-stack customers that have both IPv4 and IPv6.

I therefore don't think that any push for IPv6 is due to a concern about home users not being able to reach an IPv6-only business on the Internet.

The same is not true for residential Internet users and while I don't think it has happened yet it is anticipated that in Asia they will soon only be able to get IPv6 addresses. With Asia being the most populated continent (and a rapidly growing market) there is a serious concern from businesses serving directly or indirectly a global marketplace to be left out if they can't serve IPv6-only customers in Asia.

My guess is that ISPs are hearing demand for IPv6 from a side that they didn't really expect it: the established businesses (of all sizes) that already have an IPv4 allocation and that don't have to worry for themselves about a lack of IPv4 addresses.

There are certainly other explanations for the current push towards IPv6 and it will be interesting to hear what everybody else thinks.

Great question!

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

2 recommendations

whfsdude

Premium Member

said by leibold:

There are now (and probably for a long time to come) sufficient IPv4 addresses to ensure that any business will be able to provide Internet services to the large number of IPv4-only customers in the world.

This is definitely not the case. Many ISPs (think mobile operators) do not currently have the address space to assign a global IPv4 address to each end-user. If they decided to, you'd see instant depletion of IPv4.

This means you see the end-to-end-ness of the Internet break. Eg. Carrier grade NAT. So there will always be in sense IPv4 available if you just add layers of NAT. Of course the user experience for this is subpar.
said by leibold:

I therefore don't think that any push for IPv6 is due to a concern about home users not being able to reach an IPv6-only business on the Internet.

It's being pushed because IPv6 connectivity is better than carrier grade NAT. You will start seeing things like web forums ban IPv4 users when you have 500 users behind an IPv4, and one of them is spamming. Native IPv6 is just a better experience.
said by leibold:

The same is not true for residential Internet users and while I don't think it has happened yet it is anticipated that in Asia they will soon only be able to get IPv6 addresses.

APNIC is out as has been for a couple of months now. You cannot get IPv4 space at all with the exception of for transition methods.

RIPE (EU) will run out this fall.
ARIN (North America) will be likely out in by March of 2013.
said by leibold:

My guess is that ISPs are hearing demand for IPv6 from a side that they didn't really expect it: the established businesses (of all sizes) that already have an IPv4 allocation and that don't have to worry for themselves about a lack of IPv4 addresses.

Combination of demand and the realization that it's inevitable. If you have an ISP, it's best to deploy it as soon as possible. Imagine waiting until the last second, you have to replace every single customer's router and CPE at the last second. It's better they get a head start now (still kind of late to the game).

leibold
MVM
join:2002-07-09
Sunnyvale, CA
Netgear CG3000DCR
ZyXEL P-663HN-51

1 edit

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leibold

MVM

said by whfsdude:

said by leibold:

There are now (and probably for a long time to come) sufficient IPv4 addresses to ensure that any business will be able to provide Internet services to the large number of IPv4-only customers in the world.

This is definitely not the case.

What I said is definitely true today and will certainly be true next year too. My guess is that it will still be true 5 years from now (can't prove that, but time will tell). Chances are by the time a business can't obtain an IPv4 address for their Internet presence anymore it won't matter because everybody has IPv6 access.

I had clearly separated businesses (providing services on the Internet) and residential users (primarily consuming those services). The quoted statement refers clearly to businesses providing Internet services while your response refers to end users. I don't disagree with what you said about ISPs not being able to assign global IPv4 addresses to each end-user but I fail to see how that relates to the quoted statement of mine ?

The allocation of IPv4 addresses has been (for the most part still is) a multi-tiered hierarchy:
- at the top you have the IANA and there is no disagreement that they are out of IPv4 addresses already (special reserves excluded, some of which may not be useful for technical reasons).
- at the next tier you have the RIRs. APNIC (Asia Pacific) was projected to run out already (hasn't yet as far as I know, but it is getting close) while AFRINIC (Africa) and LACNIC (Latin America) have reserves for about 2 years. RIPE (Europe) and ARIN (North America) were earlier projected to run out this year but may make it until next year.
- at the next tier you have the ISPs (technically this could be considered two tiers because there are a number of small ISPs that get their IPv4 allocations from large ISPs whose services they resell to consumers). Under the allocation guidelines of the RIRs ISPs were able (and in fact encouraged) to request not just the immediately needed IPv4 addresses but to make growth projections and to obtain larger blocks (for more efficient Internet routing). This means that at the time of an RIR running out of IPv4 addresses the ISPs in that region should have still sufficient IPv4 addresses for 6 to 12 month of projected growth.
- at the next tier you have both residential and commercial Internet users. It is unreasonable to expect any reserves of IPv4 addresses in the hands of residential or small business customers. However some enterprises that joined the Internet early on were allocated IP blocks that are far larger then their actual needs.

As RIRs start to run out of IPv4 addresses expect to see ISPs to start reclaiming previously allocated but now unused IPv4 addresses. I know at least one ISP that did that already years ago but for many there was no incentive to do so since a new allocation from the RIR was cheaper then tracking down the records about old allocations. Some older ISPs have used class A/B IPv4 blocks for their internal use in network operations. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them carve chunks out of that space to allocate for customers willing to pay a premium for static IP addresses once IPv4 get scarce.

In parallel you will increasingly see IPv4 address block trades outside of the traditional IPv4 allocation hierarchy. This has already started and the first private IPv4 address sale that was made public (Nortel to Microsoft) put a price of $11.25 per IPv4 address. Since this is less then the amount some ISPs charge monthly for a static IPv4 address consider this price to go up dramatically (great investment by Microsoft!).

IP address renumbering is a big hassle but I'd be very surprised if there will not be a number of enterprises that carve up their old class A/B IPv4 blocks and sell most of it for the highest bidder. Even at only $100 per IP address selling 80% of a class B block would be over 5 million dollars and I expect the price to go well beyond that.

Once the value of an IPv4 address has risen sufficiently expect to see trades from Latin America and Africa to the Asia, Europe and North America regions.

End-users (consumers of Internet based services) may soon not be able to get global IPv4 addresses (they will still get IPv4 Internet access but it will be double NAT like AT&T is setting up right now) but any business intending to provide such services will have no problem doing so (it is likely to get more expensive but what else is new?).

Edit: APNIC is at the last /8 block which means that stricter allocation rules apply. As of today they still have 92% of this last block available for allocation.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

2 recommendations

whfsdude

Premium Member

said by leibold:

I had clearly separated businesses

You're totally right, that you were talking about businesses (especially corp networks).

I do think it's worth mentioning that some business will run into problems though. Specifically, CDNs or anyone that has a webpage that is loaded by a lot of users, with a lot of timeouts. Port exhaustion from users hitting behind a CGN will be a real issue.

Another big one will be hosting providers. I see the VPS/cloud market either getting real expensive or going IPv6 only with extra fees for v4.
said by leibold:

RIPE (Europe) and ARIN (North America) were earlier projected to run out this year but may make it until next year.

So fun fact. RIPE is now handing out 5/8 now which is horribly blackholed due to hamachi using 5/8 for internal routing.
said by leibold:

This means that at the time of an RIR running out of IPv4 addresses the ISPs in that region should have still sufficient IPv4 addresses for 6 to 12 month of projected growth.

As you pointed out, this is highly dependent on ISPs. Comcast for example should be fine. I think with size, you should add growth rate. Clearwire, although large, might be in trouble with IPv4 blocks due to growth that should occur with their LTE deployment.

Btw, ARIN region is 3 months projection now and has been for almost a year.
said by leibold:

This has already started and the first private IPv4 address sale that was made public (Nortel to Microsoft) put a price of $11.25 per IPv4 address.

It should be interesting to see how much the market will tolerate. I think we're going to see higher than $11.25 per address as this was when there was still v4 space available and was just used to bypass the "need rules."

Pre-RIR addresses will obviously be the most expensive. RIRs are developing transfer policies which might have stricter rules that would limit cost by requiring certain usage justification etc. Unsure how this will all play out.
said by leibold:

Edit: APNIC is at the last /8 block which means that stricter allocation rules apply. As of today they still have 92% of this last block available for allocation.

Yes. They're on their last /8 which is phase 3 of their allocation rules.

However, that triggers a policy where by you can only get one /22 and it must be used for transition technologies.

It will likely remain in this state for years.

Phase 3 == exhaustion and most researchers treat it as such. Unless you're running NAT64 or CGN, you cannot get an allocation.