[members-discuss] Ideas on how to promote IPv6

Rather than continue with the old discussion, I thought it would be more helpful to start a discussion where we come up with ideas that helps promote IPv6.

Many of us RIPE NCC members already realise the value of IPv6, and how much better it would be for the Internet as the whole.  Many of us are already implementing IPv6 on a large scale - including myself.  There's a lot of websites that supports IPv6 already, especially the "major" ones, but if you look at Google IPv6 stats, you can see that only 12% of its users are on IPv6.  The good news is that this IS twice as much as last year - so congrauations to everybody who put in a a great effort to do that.

The bad news is, this still means 88% of the worlds population is still connecting from legacy IP only.  This is our problem.  ISP's - the people who give internet connections to the masses.  This is the root cause of why we all still have to provide both legacy IP and IP to our customers, so that we can host services which will reach the greatest audience.  We're not deliberately trying to slow down the deployment of IPv6 (well, at least, I hope we're not!).  How do we turn this around though?  How can we force ISP's to do what my ISP has done, and provide dual-stack IP for home and work connections?

This is where we need to come up with suggestions.

Suggestion: Tax IPv4 addresses on a per year or per quarter basis - both old allocations AND new allocations.  How the taxing is done would have to be decided by a committee, but it should be a tax that cannot be passed on to the end user - i.e. the LIR themselves have to pay the tax, and they are forbidden to increase their costs to their subscribers.
Condition: Every IANA member needs to impose this - i.e. RIPE NCC, AFRINIC, APNIC, ARIN and LACNIC.  It won't work if only one registry does this, we need a worldwide effort.
Desired effects:

  *   ISP's will hasten their IPv6 deployment
  *   Old unused IPv4 address blocks will be given back to the RIR to avoid paying unnecessary taxes
  *   The number of IPv6 users on Google's stats increases exponentially

Suggestion: Politely mock people who don't support IPv6.  Many of the members of RIPE NCC have managed to build up a "godlike" status for themselves, because they're just awesome.  With that status carries a form of respect and admiration by his or her peers, and they are extremely influential in what they say or promote.

Desired effect: Instill the thought that IPv6 is the right way to go in all of the minds of their colleagues and partners.  Suggested comment: "You do realise this is the 21st Century, right?"


Suggestion: Boycott companies or products that don't support IPv6.  There are many products which still do not support IPv6.  When companies phone us trying to flog their wares, the first question you should say to them is "I'm not interested unless your product fully supports IPv6."  When choosing a new XYZ solution, actively check if the product supports IPv6, and if it does not, move on to the next contender.  Don't be afraid to use the "request a quote" feature to ask if the product supports IPv6.

Desired effect: Companies will start taking IPv6 support more seriously if they realised people are going to stop buying their product unless they do.


Thanks for taking the time to read this - if there are other suggestions which help promote IPv6, please contribute.


Lester Clayton

Technical Manager - Netscenario AS

http://www.netscenario.no
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