Comcast goes IPv6
Today there was on Heise.de, a German IT news site, a report that Comcat will start migration tests to IPv6 in its network. Interested customers can participate after some initial preparation is finished. They plan to use 6RD, which was developed by Free, an ISP in France back in 2007.
Is this the start of the expected big move to IPv6? I hope so! I'm using IPv6 for about a year now and don't want to miss it anymore. Sure, I access most sites via IPv4, but this is just because there aren't that many sites out there that offer dual stack hosting in IPv4 and IPv6 land. Even Google is just offering a dedicated domain (ipv6.google.com) for its search engine. Even Heise.de is not dual stacked. The reasons for running two separate websites, one for IPv4 and one for IPv6, are often said to be issues with applications and such.
My for websites I can't confirm such issues for the time I'm running IPv4 and IPv6 on the same sites or the same host. But I registered an increase in access from IPv6 enabled hosts during the last year. So, is the move of Comcast to offer a (more or less) public test program for IPv6 connectivity the start of using IPv6 in masses? I know that in Asia IPv6 is more widely spread than anywhere else, but will the Comcast move force websites to open their contents to IPv6 as well? Basically the problem in IPv6 introduction is usually some sort of chicken-egg-problem: without customers with IPv6 connectivity there won't be IPv6 enabled content, and without IPv6 enabled content there will be no need for customers to demand content that is accessible by IPv6. Comcast might have an impact in demanding IPv6 enabled content, I think. How about you, dear lazyweb?
Hi,
@ " I know that in Asia IPv6 is more widely spread than anywhere else"
How do you know that? I know it is said and repeated a lot, but I have never seen any facts about that.
Here in Austria, starting with this year we got your first (small) ISP (hotze.com) to offer native IPv6 to their customers. From my experience with migration from a SixXs tunnel to a native connectivity the biggest problem today is the router/modem located at the customer. I had to buy an expensive Cisco 877W router to get all the features for IPv6 which were offered by my old WAG200 for IPv4.
But at least i can confirm the increasing rate of IPv6 visitors on most of my services (SMTP and HTTP being the ones getting most of the IPv6 traffic).
Well, not being NATted does mean on the other side that you need to take care of services, for example by using a firewall on every host in your LAN, or by using a bridging firewall on your home gateway. But that's the only drawback of IPv6 I encountered so far... ;)
same here, I have no problems with IPv6 and IPv4 for the same services (exim, apache, courier-imap, ejabberd) all support dual stacks. We had a fine IPv6 network at the Mönchengladbach BSP and I could connect to hosts that would be behind NAT otherwise which is one of IPv6's biggest bennefits from my point of view.
Erm, no, actually not... it's a well known "fact".... like an urban legend or so, I guess...
OTOH I haven't seen any proof of the contrary... ;-)