[AusNOG] My Predictions for the ISP Industry

[Mark Newton]

On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 10:03:18AM +1100, Skeeve Stevens wrote:

 > My worry is that the rush to deal with IPv6 migration methods will be a lot
 > like the old days when moving from 28.8 to 56k... and all the ensuing
 > incompatibilities because vendors couldn't wait with Hayes, USR all coming
 > up with their own standards like V.Fast, V.FC then K56Flex, X2 and so on...

Sure, but that'll just add to the cost of maintaining IPv4.

"If we stick with v4, we need to do all these other difficult and
expensive things.  If we switch to v6, that'll have a cost and
difficulty factor too. The right time to switch will be when the 
former exceeds the latter."

Currently the cost of sticking with IPv4 remains low, so there's
not much momentum.

I reckon once it starts to rise, there'll eventually be a tipping
point, and the v4-to-v6 transition will happen faster than anyone
thinks.

Who wants to be the last remaining IPv4-only network on the 
internet, with all the opex and reliability implications that
entails?

 > What will be the transition versions that carriers like Cisco may come up
 > with which are proprietary and non-compatible with other vendors.  Will it
 > happen? Of course it will... who will be first?

In the grand scheme of things it won't matter.  It'll feel like it
matters while it's happening, but (like incompatible 56k modems) it'll
be pretty irrelevant in retrospect once all the dust has settled.

  - mark