[afripv6-discuss] What have you done for IPv6 lately, since the 1st of January, 2013?

[Nishal Goburdhan]

On 19 Feb 2013, at 3:50 PM, Guy Antony Halse <G.halse at ru.ac.za> wrote:
> On Tue 2013-02-19 (08:22), Carlos M. martinez wrote:
>> 
>> <my opinion here is strictly my own and doesn't necessarily reflect my
>> employers'>

^^ as above.


>> I fret when I read "no customer is asking for it" because no customer
>> will ask for IPv6 _ever_. Just as no one here or in the Internet ever
>> asked for IPv4.
> 
> So I am the customer who *did* ask my home DSL provider for IPv6.  For the
> very reasons expressed above I know I'm in the minority, which is precisely
> why I made a point of asking on behalf of those who don't know they need it.

i did the same.

from my home:
katala:~ nishal$ ifconfig en1 inet6
en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
	inet6 fe80::e6ce:8fff:fe0a:wxyz%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5 
	inet6 2c0f:fc00:a000:1010:e6ce:8fff:fe0a:wxyz prefixlen 64 autoconf 
	inet6 2c0f:fc00:a000:1010:c59a:7647:9753:fba5 prefixlen 64 autoconf temporary 

it's via a tunnel to a router inside my DSL providers network.
but so what?  it works.  quite well actually.

> The answer I got was "we don't support IPv6 at the moment".  I asked if they
> had a timeframe for deployment, so I'd know when to ask again.  The answer:
> "we have no plans to support IPv6".
> 
> Unfortunately I think this is very common.  There's a catch22 here...


vote with your wallet...

using IPv6 from home i've logged tickets with different operators, in my home country when i noticed something broken.
usually, most of them respond.  some of them have even fixed anomalies.
some - particularly the larger mobile operators - don't.  i haven't undertaken to find out why.
oh.  i don't browse to yahoo...

but it's not just about apathy, or ignorance.  it's cost as well.
in one sub-saharan country, the ex-incumbent still controls the copper (last-mile) for that country's DSL users.  the ex-incumbent's  LLU offering (it's L2TP, but let's not quibble) will allow ISPs to provision IPv6 natively instead of via tunnels.  but the cost of the LLU service is 30% more than the cost of the established mechanism for connecting DSL users.  

why - in a market that's facing ever decreasing ARPU - will you, as a broadband operator, want to pay the 30% premium if your clients can't tell the difference? 

--n.