[AfriNIC-rpd] What is our take on the central pool IPv4 exhaustion?

[Colin Alston]

On 13/08/2007 07:18 Bill Woodcock wrote:
> I said it was "likely."  It's a prediction of what will happen in the 
> future.  It's based on my experience of AppleTalk, DECnet, XNS, and 
> Netware taking that long to fade away.

I'm not sure those particular transitions are entirely comparable to 
IP since their use was more autonomous and there were much lower 
numbers involved in their time. The accounts for arpanet to TCP 
transition hold more interest for me, in which there were 
organisations who did not adopt and were left in the dark when NCP was 
finally abandoned. I think this situation is more likely, but the 
number of people left in the dark will be significantly higher - this 
is their own decision though and don't think it should influence 
AfriNIC policy.

> How long would you have predicted it would take for IPv4 to fade away, had 
> you been making the prediction in 1995?

"fade away" is a broad term. The concept of transition (or dual-phased 
implementation) is generally gradual, but where IPv4 has no ability to 
contact the IPv6 network (the reverse is sort-of true) the falloff 
should be more exponential from the point where IPv6 gathers end-user 
momentum (deployment). The failing here is the human desire to keep 
everyone safe from still being on IPv4 - frankly I feel there is no 
time to do this any longer. The real question is where the right 
pressure should be in places (Google, online banking etc) which will 
ultimately be responsible for end-user pressure to their upstreams. 
Without those places doing first adoption of IPv6 it certainly will fail.

>     > Do your self a favor and join an ARIN list and follow the
>     > discussions there. THEY are gearing for definite switch dates.
> 
> Do yourself a favor and examine the authorship of the document you're 
> referring to.

I accidentally read your name as "Woodstock" which made my 
pre-research fail. I blame the flu, or my interest in beer and music.

>     > As for dual stacked networks, these are a transition mechanism in order
>     > for migrations to take place in a seamless and coordinated way.
>     > Implementing or working on IPv6 systems without a dual stack would be
>     > impossibly unfeasible.
> 
> Thank you.  That was exactly my point.  I'm glad you've reiterated it in a 
> way that works for you.

No problem :)

-- 
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