If you think of IPv6 as an end to end
technology that can gracefully ride on top of the global IPv4 ISP provided
infrastructure, you don't have to have the "Internet Infrastructure" transition
to IPv6 for a long, long time.
Peer to Peer applications are going to be
sufficient to get people to upgrade their "NAT infrastructures" to support IPv6
over IPv4 tunneling. This is all aided by the plummeting cost of NAT
replacement (e.g. < $50, which is a lot cheaper than the early Internet
upgrade days of modem replacement for v.34, v.90, cable modem,
etc.). Thus, the tunnel phase of IPv6 is quite viable, and has
the FEATURE that you don't need massive shifts/upgrades in public Internet
infrastructure. This is relatively simple to promote to end users as
well: your old and new can work together ... ( I have observed: not
too many end users are into the "management" of their networks.)
IPv6 only networks can be created to
support closed IPv6-only device networks such as the cell phone networks.
Thus, HUGE networks with application relays/proxies between ipv6 and ipv4
infrastructures will be created where global interop is essential, such as
email, web browsing, etc. The incentives to the cell phone
operators are obvious. One might also observe: the cell phone
operators and their suppliers are not keen on building open host platforms for
deployment of arbitrary applications and protocols. This will turn out to
be a feature for IPv6 deployment. Thus, a new breed of ISPs will drive
IPv6 deployment in ISP space.
Enterprises will be last to go.
Why? Because in fact they run relatively small networks, and the core
value of IPv6 is large addressability. The extent to which better
security is available for IPv6 may be a sufficient draw for many companies, but
not all. Thus, the current "revenue champion" for networking will not be
the early revenue driver for IPv6 as we have seen for routers and ethernet
switches. Since enterprise also drives a huge amount of ISP deployments, I
would not expect the current ISPs to be the first to transition to, or augment
with, IPv6.
The transition will occur based on
technologies and deployments as discussed and planned in the IETF oh
so long ago. Much like it took the world many, many years to realize
the value of transitioning to IPv4 in the first place, transition to a new
infrastructure protocol is going to take a long time. IPv6 was
created for a world with tons and tons of hosts and devices. That time is
almost here, so it is only now that IPv6 deployment is going to be economically
relevant and viable. Pushing in front of this time horizon is good for
getting the deployment issues worked out, but people can't expect that just
because the technology is good to go, that it will just go.
regards,
peterf
P.S. The IETF might want to
spend more time working on topics germane to the cell phone industry. Not
that IPv6 hasn't taken a lot of time ... :-)