[AusNOG] IPv6: Where's my tunnel?

[Karl Auer]

On Wed, 2013-03-06 at 22:22 +1300, Don Gould wrote:
> How hard is it to set up the server end of a tunnel broker?

Not that hard - probably a few days from scratch if you had no idea at
all where to start; less if you had some idea. At the end of that you'd
have a software solution running on something like FreeBSD. Of course,
to handle real customers, or thousands of customers, you would probably
need something more robust, maybe in hardware, and to run the thing as a
service, it would need to be bulletproof, well-connected etc. And of
course then there are the ongoing costs of space, power, cooling,
administration.... by the end of all that, it probably isn't looking
that cheap or easy, really. You would probably be talking tens of
thousands to set it up and run it in the first year.

> Why is my ISP, who can't run v6 on their BRAS, not just setting up a 
> tunnel broker service in their network so I can have shortest path 
> routing for my v6 today?

Hm. Put that para together with this para:

> I don't understand why I should need to pay for my data twice if I have 
> to buy services off a commercial tunnel broker.

...and you find the reason. It costs a bundle to set one up, but nobody
is prepared to pay for it. Same problem as IPv6 generally, in fact - but
they will be forced to go that way, while no-one is forcing tunnel
brokers on them. How many ISP customers have changed providers for IPv6?
I did :-) but I suspect I am very much the exception rather than the
rule.

If Australian customers were flooding to Internode in their thousands,
seeking IPv6, then the other providers would suddenly discover IPv6 was
worthwhile after all.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://www.biplane.com.au/blog

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