The worldwide commercial launch of IPv6 on June 6, an event sponsored and organized by the Internet Society, was called a major milestone by several players and consultant firms. The launch of the new Internet protocol version follows the successful 2011 test day. However, at the moment, only some IPv6 deployments are expected for the participants’ products and services.
The World IPv6 Launch brings together various telecom operators, content providers and manufacturers to promote larger and scale use of the new protocol to replace IPv4.
As RCR Wireless News noted in a recent story, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority delivered the last remaining blocks of IPv4 addresses in February 2011. These addresses may be exhausted sooner than previously predicted due to the Internet’s explosive growth. By then, all telecom players will have to adapt their infrastructure to support IPv6. This scenario obligates all companies and organizations to adapt their infrastructure to support IPv6 — although they will have to support both protocols for some time.
Follow RCR Wireless News—Americas on Twitter, Facebook and subscribe to our free periodic newsletters
IPv6 adoption might begin slowly and will impact several players, including CPEs and ISPs. However, since large companies and governments around the globe have committed to adopt the standard, others will soon follow. Google, Cisco, Comcast, Microsoft, Facebook and Ericsson have said they will enable access to their content via IPv6 and support this protocol through their network devices.
“After the World IPv6 Launch, most leading websites will have IPv6 enabled permanently, many residential equipment vendors (including Cisco, D-Link, and ZyXEL) will include IPv6 connectivity in their default product settings, and commercial IPv6 services will finally begin a multi-year growth surge,” said Mike Sapien, an enterprise telecom analyst at Ovum. He added that more customers are now starting to realize the importance of addressing support for IPv6.
The replacement will not happen overnight. In the coming years, the industry will provide dual-support capability for both IPv4 and IPv6. Lucas Pinz, manager’s network at PromonLogicalis, explained that moving to IPv6 is an important step for the industry, and it is crucial to break out of the cycle of the lack of content in IPv6, and thus make progress on the massive use of this protocol. He added that IPv6 is the only protocol capable of generating the number of addresses needed to connect billions of devices on the Internet in coming years.
Some companies have already begun this process, as pointed out by David Krozier, a network infrastructure analyst at Ovum. He noted Verizon Communications currently supports enterprise and government customers with native and tunneled IPv6 services. “The Verizon LTE network is enabled for IPv6, and the company is testing IPv6 on its FiOS network,” he said.
Krozier also noted that several other companies are taking part: AT&T has set a 2020 date for full IPv6 deployment. The company also offers IPv6 commercial services on its U-verse network. Comcast has provided IPv6 services to more than 1% of its residential wireline subscribers, and Time Warner is offering IPv6 to residential subscribers.
“Around the globe, Internode (Australia) supports IPv6 services with a dual-stack network, and ISPs in Hong Kong as well as KDDI, XS4ALL, and Free Telecom are all offering IPv6 connectivity,” Krozier said.
CPEs will also be impacted. Most recent computers, servers and operating systems for mobile phones are IPv6 ready. “The big issue is not related to carriers, because they have their infrastructure ready to deploy, but with domestic users terminals,” Pinz told RCR Wireless News in an interview last year.
The largest investments, however, might not happen now or come from deployment by telecom operators. Carriers are improving their infrastructure, but much of their equipment was recently purchased and IPv6-ready. Carriers will have to buy IPv6-ready routers, appliances, devices and programs.
