[AusNOG] Less than 10% of IPv4 Addresses Remain Unallocated

[Mark Smith]

On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:37:25 +1100
Geoff Huston <gih at apnic.net> wrote:

> 
> On 21/01/2010, at 10:57 AM, Paul Grehan wrote:
> 
> > Geoff,
> > 
> > This always seems to be a moot point ending in a finger pointing exercise between SP's and vendors (particularly those that mass produce low cost CPE, and those that provide their chipsets)...
> > 
> > Is APNIC and other RIR's getting much traction from these vendors as I see SP's as only half the equation....
> > 
> 
> Thats a good point.
> 
> What tends to get tractions with vendors, large and small, is purchase orders! The  problem is that for CPE its not the ISP that conventionally buys the CPE, its the end users who head to their local retail outlet online or in the store and buy the (cheapest) unit they can get their hands on, and, unfortunately, no IPv6 is included in their requirements in general.

Is "IPv4" included in their requirements? I don't really think they
are either. People just want a box that allows them to connect to the
Internet. I don't think they're aware of or care about the "magic" of
how. They care about cost and things like whether the box supports
wireless or not, and whether it will work with their ISP or not, and
usually they're talking to their technically oriented son, daugher,
cousin, nextdoor neighbor, shop assistent or support person at their
ISP.

If we want the typical end user to care about whether IPv6 is supported
or not, then I think we need to explain to them why it's important.
Because IP addresses are hidden behind domain names, people aren't
generally exposed to them and therefore aren't aware of them - what
they're for and what they do.

In this situation I think you need to relate what you're talking about
back to something that people do understand. I think ordinary telephone
numbers are something people understand, and you can say that IP
addresses are like the "telephone numbers of the Internet". Most
might remember the change from 7 to 8 digit phone numbers, which was
because 7 wasn't enough. You can also use the example of how there used
to only be a single phone in people's homes, now there are a number of
them because of mobiles, which was one of the reasons why there needed
to be more phone numbers. You can possibly explain NAT and it's issues
by saying it's like having to share a single phone number between
multiple family members' mobile phones, instead of each person having
their own mobile number.

Once you explain that the IPv4 / IPv6 problem is similar, just that the
"Internet phone numbers" are hidden behind the "website names" (i.e.
try to avoid technical nomenclature), then I think ordinary people will
then understand why IPv6 is needed and is important, and why they need
to care about it.

People care about things they care about, otherwise they don't  :-).
Until people know they why they need to care about IPv4 and IPv6 they
won't care about either of them. We need to explain that to them in
terms that they'll both understand and can relate to.

> So unless the ISP wants to package up the CPE and
include devices that fold in a good implementation of IPv6 (such as the
rather cool FRITZ!Box from germany, and the extremely capable but
somewhat pricey for the home consumer Cisco 877 offering), then nothing
happens. And why should an ISP do this CPE bundling? Its not for the
money, unfortunately, because such packaged CPE offerings generally
tend to cost the ISP more in inventory, support and process costs than
any revenue that they raise. So getting pressure on the CPE supply chain
 to fold in IPv6 into their product lines is not proving to be easy.
> 
> But its not all just the end user's CPE purchase decisions. The wireless market has its own issues here. What I also find a little worrisome is combining the observation that there is no IPv6 support in the current set of mass-market wireless broadband offerings, with the following:
> 
>    The Australian, Wednesday 13 January 2010: "Use of wireless broadband services mushroomed during the past year [2009] to reach more than 2 million subscribers, driven by the popularity of wireless modems and mobile devices such as the iPhone. The Australian Communications and Media Authority's communications report [for 2009] revealed the use of wireless broadband services jumped by 162 per cent in 2008-2009. ... Wireless broadband subscribers accounted for 25 percent of the number of Internet subscribers, up from 11 per cent in 2008."
> 
> No only am I am totally unaware of a single wireless broadband service that supports native V6 today in Australia, I also can't find any public disclosure of any real plans plus timelines from this industry sector to support V6 in the near future. Either I'm looking in all the wrong places on the net for this information, or this is an industry that is continually refining and perfecting a "just in time" approach, and is now going to leave the really important actions to the last micro-second - or maybe later! :-)
> 
>   Geoff
> 
>    Usual Disclaimer about me being opinionated all on my own.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> AusNOG mailing list
> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog