I completely agree that the end user will generally have very little or no
knowledge of how their connectivity is done underneath - as long as
Whatsapp and Facebook work, then most are happy!
But I do think the case for hanging onto IPv4 is potentially very damaging
to the ISP industry, and I will probably be repeating myself from recent
weeks.
ISP A, for example, started up 2-3 years ago and received their /22 from
RIPE but now, through growth they need more to service new customers. They
now have to pay a lot of money (in relative terms) to obtain more IPv4
addresses. To pay for these IP addresses, ISP A needs to either increase
service prices or charge a significant amount for each IPv4 address.
ISP B is just starting out and has to pay RIPE fees and get on a waiting
list for a /24. All the while being unable to provide IPv4 services.
Whereas large ISPs C, D and E, with their stock pile of IPv4 addresses
don't really care as it does not affect them, and can continue to charge
the same for the service and competition is then affected. (Assumption made
here)
All industries need to encourage startups and small businesses but hanging
onto IPv4 would massively affect our industries ability to do that - which
is already happening.
The service providers could all work together to sort this mess, but
unfortunately there is always more at play so maybe we do need legislation
to force it to happen in a phased and controlled manner.
And I completely accept that others will have a different view to myself!
Paul
On Tue, 26 May 2020 at 14:18, Per Bilse <perbi...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I think it's a case of the notion of connectivity being changed faster
> than many other things. How connectivity is achieved is ultimately not
> important to most people, and which addressing scheme is used is a detail
> hardly anybody even knows about.
>
> When I first got involved, I didn't have IP connectivity at all; I had
> UUCP email and news ("We used to !, but now we @"). Then I got FTP via
> email, a new world. Then I got IP, globally routed IP, on my pizza box
> (later to be a shoe box), yet another new world; you could use 'talk' (a
> command line, curses-windowed chat) across the Internet if you knew the
> other guy's IP address, how cool is that? Then I got WWW/HTTP (and DNS),
> yet again a new world. Each world introduced a new addressing scheme,
> another way to specify where you want to go. (There was also a parallel
> universe where things were called X.something, but nobody went there.)
>
> Then I got NAT'ed IP; not a new world, but a big change in connectivity
> semantics, yet with little change in usefulness. Now ... well, how many
> regular punters know what they've got?
>
> If you look at how connectivity is shaped in people's daily lives, most of
> them don't know they have an IP address. Most don't even use a general
> purpose web browser (with DNS), they use an "app", whose means of
> connecting to a fixed server is entirely hidden. It probably uses DNS,
> which resolves to IP, which maps to MAC, which maybe rides on whatever PPP
> or ATM or something else uses, but none of that is important. No
> personal connectivity device needs an 'ifconfig' icon in order to work, and
> IPv4 vs IPv6 isn't important either; it isn't the addressing scheme people
> buy into, and that goes for the UKNOF audience too. When did anybody last
> care about MAC addresses? What if the ubiquitous 48bit MAC was replaced by
> something completely different? As long as IPvN packets can be forwarded,
> it doesn't matter to anybody here.
>
> So, assuming the role of party pooper, I think there's a good case for
> IPv4 being here forever. Whether connectivity is provided via IPv4 or IPv6
> or something else is a detail, and I don't think you can compare to Y2K or
> 2038; both of those come with a degree of certainty that a policy decision
> will never have. I fully understand the frustration expressed by many
> people, but I think it's something that just comes with the job.
>
> Best,
>
> -- Per
>
>
> On Tuesday, 26 May 2020, 01:11:25 BST, Paul Mansfield <
> paul+uk...@mansfield.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> So is it actually feasible to announce *any* date when IPv6 will be
> the only connectivity offered to the end user? The thing is that
> without target dates and deadlines, things will drag on indefinitely.
> I'll admit I wanted to deliberately put up a challenging statement,
> but not to troll, really. I genuinely want an answer to "is there a
> possible date?".
>
> Looking back at Y2K, would all that effort have been put in to kill
> off old services and tidy up all the cr*p if there hadn't been a fixed
> deadline? As to the Jan 19 2038 problem, how many of us hope to be
> retired by then, or will we be dragged out of retirement?!
>
> Ok, yes, there's a hell of a lot of legacy equipment in place which
> could still be there in five years, so perhaps five years isn't near
> enough for ipv4 use to have fallen into almost disuse. Do "we" still
> want to be fighting with dual-stack networks, CGNAT, scrabbling to buy
> ever more expensive IPv4 addresses etc indefinitely? Will 2038 also
> mark a point where legacy systems have to be retired because of their
> use of 32 bit math for dates and thus also retire non-ipv6 compliant
> systems? Eighteen years seems a long way away?
>
>
>
--
Paul Bone
Network Consultant
PMB Technology
