[address-policy-wg] IPv6 allocations for 6RD

All,

My main goal with supporting 6rd is to see IPv6 deployed by Service 
Providers, preferably before the onslaught of CGNs leading to RFC1918 
Private IPv4 as the new default Internet Access. As such, the fact that 
we are even having this conversation is rather encouraging.

At the moment, 6rd accounts for the largest residential IPv6 Internet 
deployment to date. It's natural that some SPs are interested in 
replicating what has shown to work well for a neighboring SP. Not all of 
them want to go this route, but some do, and I’m thrilled as this very 
likely means a sooner IPv6 deployment in the world (at least among those 
SPs who see 6rd as their most viable alternative). I want to underscore 
here that we are not talking about forever allocating space away to a 
transition mechanism as was done with the /16 for 6to4, or the /32 for 
Teredo. Those address spaces will never be used for anything else, ever. 
The 6rd-related requests are, of course, for allocations to SPs that 
actually want to deploy IPv6 to their subscriber population in relative 
short order. One day, I hope that 6rd is not necessary for IPv6 
deployment, but for the moment I'm firmly convinced that it is in a 
number of cases.

Perhaps the WG could consider a temporary "early adopter" 6rd policy... 
e.g., for the next 3-5 years, those SPs that can show that native 
service is not economically viable for them, but commit that they can 
and will deploy with 6rd, will be allocated space necessary to get off 
the ground. At the end of this period, the WG could re-evaluate whether 
to abandon the more liberal policy in light of the ability to deploy 
natively at that time.

As for the status of 6rd in the IETF, draft-townsley… is expired, and 
has been replaced by the Softwires Working Group document 
draft-ietf-softwire-ipv6-6rd-01.txt.

Many Thanks,

- Mark