IPv6 Going Mainstream (your comments)

[Dog-One]

I've been hearing this and that about IPv6: MCI says 2005, US DOD 2006 (I think). I was just curious what you folks think will happen and when.

I just can't picture connecting to some ISP like AOL or MSN and getting a true IPv6 address. Has anyone verified this happening in the wild?

[ewdi]

Not likely people leaving old protocol as far as i'm concern, changing it to ipv6 will take another 1-4 years.

[taylor65]

ipv6 is in use already via tunnels, but with NAT and CIDR, the problem isn't as bad as it could have been. And IANA still has quite a few ipv4 addresses available. I haven't been to a NANOG meeting for several years, so I'm not as up-to-date on this as I used to be. Also, MCI has the Internet2, which is all ipv6.

[Jman]

Internet2 is a consortium of universities developing high speed networks. They have a working group for IPv6.

I can totally see an ISP getting a bunch of IPv6 addresses. The ISP can be assigned more than it will ever need and there will be enough.

There are a few IPv4 addresses available. Which is good because it will be a long time before all infastructure switches. There is tunnelling though IPv4, but in perhaps 5 years IPv6 will really take off.

The main reason I like IPv6 is the sheer overkill of IP addresses. We're not going to run out of them.

I still don't understand it fully, though.