• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4

For example Chris Mayer, VP systems integration and testing at Verizon, told Pipeline about his company's plan for transition to IPv6. “A lot of the devices that communicate IP in the home are not IPv6 now, and not only are the end devices an issue, but the entire industry is exhausting IPv4,” said Mayer. “Technology solutions we intend to use include carrier-grade NAT.”



However, all of the “solutions” are stop-gaps that have potential downsides. NAT, for example, breaks end-to-end connectivity, and “stateful NAT cannot be deployed on the core layer because the core layer has multi-pathing and multi-homing requirements,” said Huawei in a recent whitepaper.

Additionally, there is an issue of timing. As Huawei pointed out, “If a provider begins IPv6 deployment too early, the provider must assume the costs for interworking with the surrounding networks. If a provider begins IPv6 deployment too late, the total costs on network swap increase.”

The likely scenario then, is a slow transition to IPv6. Estimates range from eight to 12 years total, before we move to a fully IPv6 world, and in the meantime, both versions of IP addressing will need to be managed and supported by networks and the devices they service.

Consumer Compatibility

According to Microsoft, another active participant in World IPv6 Day, “IPv6 support in home routers will ultimately provide a better user experience in voice and video communications, peer-to-peer games, and other technologies that require end-to-end connectivity.”

For the consumer and operator who rent routing hardware, the problem is, again, compatibility. As we reported earlier this year, most home routers don't support IPv6, including popular LinkSys routers from Cisco. There are workarounds, however, and routers with enough firmware memory which may be able to be upgrades. Even if an ISP doesn't provide native IPv6 support, there are transition technologies that support v6 traffic over a v4 network. Microsoft published these workarounds to accommodate various ISP scenarios