Very perceptive, and progress is already underway. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) started almost 10 years ago to address emerging 3G technology standards. The common interests of the members of this industry organization include the development of standards that will support new interoperable services for 3G and beyond. A cornerstone of their services model is the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) specification for converged voice data, and video for mobile devices over IP. IPv6 support is a requirement of this important standard. The carriers are looking at the revenue angle “what new services can we sell?” The IMS specification provides a clean solution foundation through the use of IPv6. Link: http://www.3gpp.org/

Another area of IPv6 for mobile carriers is easier of address management move mobile devices. Many carriers have depended on IPv4 private addressing as defined in RFC 1918. Cell towers constantly shuffle limited blocks of private addresses based on end node device activity. The use of IPv6 instead of IPv4 reduces address management burden and also enables new mobility features. Nokia has been a leader in IPv6 for the mobile environment. Microsoft has supported IPv6 in Windows Mobile for the past 5 years, with each version becoming more feature-rich.

The important thing to note is that IPv6 is not the end game, but a required ingredient to enable new services that have commercial value.