Shifting Trends in IPv6 Adoption
By Onofrio ("Norm") Schillaci
Principal Solutions Architect, Global Crossing

Despite its astronomically larger address space, little interest in adopting IPv6 has been shown in the five years since its standardization. Network Address Translation (NAT) and deployment of private IPv4 addresses have slowed the depletion of IPv4 addresses while IPv6 was being developed. In fact, NAT was so effective in slowing the rate of IPv4 address allocation that in many quarters – particularly in the United States – doubt grew over whether transitioning to IPv6 would ever be necessary. It seems that doubt was unwarranted and the trend toward network convergence has rekindled the need for IPv6.

We think there are three reasons for this:

• Planned services and devices: The intention to provide a wide array of IP services to a vast number of customers, plus plans for perhaps billions of new network-enabled devices from mobile phones to home appliances to entertainment systems, will create a demand for IP addresses that IPv4 cannot meet.
• Multiple service profiles to a single location: Multi-service offerings to a home or office will require varying levels of quality and security. In your home, you might be having a telephone conversation, while your spouse is conducting a video conference with clients, your daughter is watching a movie, and your son is playing a video game – all over the same IP connection from the same service provider. If these multiple applications require different levels of quality and security, they cannot work together through a NAT device. And, if NAT is taken out of the picture, the conservation of IP addresses is undermined.
• New markets: The expansion of service offerings to existing customers by itself represents a big demand for new IP addresses. When developing regions of the world with enormous populations and rapidly expanding economies – China and India being prime examples – are taken into account, IPv4 becomes entirely insufficient. The population of the People's Republic of China alone – some 1.3 billion people – is larger than the number of remaining, unallocated IPv4 addresses.

There’s another issue impacting IPv6 adoption. Where American interest in IPv6 was lukewarm at best as recently as two years ago, most of the larger telcos, ISPs, and MSOs are now acknowledging that IPv6 is in their future. Some are in the early exploratory stages, while many already have firm transition plans in place. A few are actively implementing IPv6. The change of attitude toward IPv6 in the U.S. can be attributed to three factors:

• An acknowledgement of the serious efforts taking place in Asia: American operators are feeling the need to stay competitive with their Asian counterparts.
• The aggressive IPv6 transition plans of several branches of the federal government: The government is a huge customer of IP services, and service providers understand that they must support IPv6 if they want to keep or gain federal agencies as customers.
• Growing multi-service plans: As service providers plan multiple service offerings, they are seeing that IPv4 – even private 10/8 address space – will not support projected addressing requirements.

Clearly, the convergence of these factors will have a significant impact on accelerating the adoption of IPv6. For more information on IPv6, including Global Crossing’s industry-leading global implementation, please visit our IP Knowledge Center or look for us at the IPv6 Summit.