* North American IPv6 Task Force tries to stimulate support of IPv6
NTT Verio, AT&T and France Telecom were among the ISPs that participated in a recent conference highlighting the many remaining roadblocks surrounding deployment of IPv6, the upgrade to the Internet’s main communications protocol.
The conference, held in Arlington, Va., in mid-November, attracted 200 attendees including government officials, systems integrators and entrepreneurs developing IPv6 products. The North American IPv6 Task Force and the IPv6 Forum sponsored the two-day event.
The delayed deployment of IPv6 in North America is a hot topic for ISPs.
Developed by the IETF, IPv6 promises easier administration, tighter security and an enhanced addressing scheme over IPv4, the Internet’s current protocol. IPv6 uses a 128-bit addressing scheme so it can support a virtually limitless number of uniquely identified systems on the ‘Net – a feature that is considered important for emerging wireless applications. In contrast, IPv4 uses a 32-bit addressing scheme and supports only a few billion systems.
The IETF completed the IPv6 standard nearly 10 years ago, and since then the Internet standards body has published 125-plus documents about how IPv6 should work with other Internet protocols, best practices for network engineers deploying IPv6 and suggested transition scenarios.
But despite the push from the Internet engineering community, IPv6 has yet to gather market momentum. NTT Verio is the only ISP that offers commercial IPv6 service in the U.S.
The November conference represents the first time the North American IPv6 Task Force has focused its agenda on ISP deployment issues, says Jim Bound, chair of the task force and CTO of the IPv6 Forum.
“The roadblock for ISPs is applications,” Bound says. “What the ISPs need are IPv6-enabled enterprise applications that support the Web and that support user e-mail interfaces… The billing systems haven’t been ported to IPv6. AAA [Authentication, Access Control and Audit] applications haven’t been ported.”
Bound says the three software applications that most need to be ported to IPv6 are Microsoft Outlook, Oracle’s database software and multimedia applications such as RealPlayer.
“The providers also need for the IPv6 products to fill out. They need network management. They need intrusion detection,” Bound says.
Bound concedes that despite ongoing outreach efforts, the North American IPv6 Task Force has failed to encourage ISPs to deploy the technology.
“Nobody would make a formal commercial ISP announcement at our conference,” he says.
However, Bound says he sees momentum for IPv6 growing among the service providers.
“The providers are very much enticed by IPv6 now, but they need time to understand what this means to their business and they need time to test it,” Bound says, pointing out that the North American IPv6 Task Force operates the world’s largest native IPv6 testbed under a project dubbed Moonv6.
AT&T was the only ISP to participate in a November Moonv6 interoperability test that included VoIP.
“All the Asian ISPs have pretty much started [IPv6 deployment],” Bound says. “Our objective with Moonv6 is to get the growth curve back in the U.S. In Europe, we’re seeing lots of testing and research, but not much commercial deployment…. The market there is waiting for 3G.”
Bound is hoping that IPv6 will begin to catch on in the U.S. next year.
“I’ll be surprised if we don’t hear about [additional ISPs offering commercial IPv6 service] in 2005 given the momentum we see around Moonv6,” Bound adds.
In other IPv6 news, the North American IPv6 Task Force announced its first regional subchapter, which was formed in California to boost outreach to network companies in Silicon Valley. The group also plans a subchapter in Canada.
The group is launching the IPv6 Business Council, which will represent potential enterprise users of IPv6.
The North American IPv6 Task Force will hold its next event in Florida on April 11, 2005. It will be a joint event with the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), a nonprofit organization that doles out IPv4 and IPv6 address space to ISPs and enterprises.
