[Community-Discuss] Liquid Telecom warns of looming address shortage - Daily Nation

[Andrew Alston]

Hi Ali,

If I may respond here.

Firstly – I think we need to be careful about referring to blanket transition – what Liquid has said is, we have to be ready with dual-stack networks.  As v4 runs out – that dual-stack becomes more and more critical because it will enable the full transition when the time comes for it.  How soon that will come is hard to say – but it is coming.

What are the major impediments?  There are 2 or 3 major points here:


a.)     Lack of will to actually do it – it takes work, it takes time, it takes effort – and the will power to actually move beyond talking the talk into walking the walk doesn’t seem to be there

b.)     Lack of understanding/skill – The fact is that implementing v6 vs implementing v4 – it’s just another protocol, same routing, same everything.  But there is a fear factor walking into something that is misunderstood.  That lack of understanding that you can build this simultaneously in the same way you build v4, creates the fear factor.  The fear of handling addressing plans in hexadecimal is also prohibiting growth.  I run into that one a lot – people having issues with the address planning.

c.)     The last question is the million dollar one – because the reality is – all it takes is will power and a willingness to actually take some action.

The simple fact is – we had a relatively small team on this – we committed a bunch of hours – we stuck our heads down and did it.  We did not spend money – other than the cost of the time (which is an OPEX cost admittedly).  We said ourselves deadlines and we DID it.

There are those who propose that setting policies to try and force v6 is workable – it’s not – unless the will is there it will achieve nothing.  People have to WANT this.  It is a matter of desire and a matter of seeing the benefits – the benefits are future proofing – they are not based on revenue generation, but more revenue retention.

And if anyone wants to see just how much impact you can have with a small team that actually has the desire, please see the following stats out of Zimbabwe (our largest consumer market)

http://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/ZW?b=20161001&d=10
http://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS30969?b=20161001&d=10
http://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/XB?b=20161001&d=10

(I see things have slightly dropped off today, these stats tend to fluctuate, but fact is – it’s out there and it work’s.

Andrew




From: Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke>
Date: Monday, 10 October 2016 at 09:01
To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>, General Discussions of AFRINIC <community-discuss at afrinic.net>
Subject: [Community-Discuss] Liquid Telecom warns of looming address shortage - Daily Nation


Dear listers

Greetings and apologies for cross-posting.

Internet service provider Liquid Telecom Kenya has warned that Africa is set to run out of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses as early as next year, potentially slowing down digital growth in the continent.

Read on:-

http://www.nation.co.ke/business/Liquid-Telecom-warns-of-looming-address-shortage/996-3410850-format-xhtml-aub5sm/index.html

Couple of questions:-

1. How involved are we as a community in ensuring the smooth transition from IPV4 to IPV6?

2. What have been the major impediments to the successful migration?

3. How can we move the needle faster?

Ali Hussein
Tel: +254 713 601113
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