[afnog] What are the major challenges in enabling Services to run on IPv6?

[Andrew Alston]

Hi Malick,

This is kind of a short sighted view in my opinion.  Why you ask?  Because the rest of the world has to go V6 and V6 doesn't talk to V4, unless you want to take a huge step backwards and start running translation mechanisms and other dodgy kludges which will further degrade the African internet experience.

Money is being spent on fiber, wimax and all the other things you mention, in vast quantities.  Infact I would hazard a guess that the investment levels into African infrastructure at the moment are probably outstripping what is being spent upgrading systems in other more developed parts of the world.  That should not stop us trying to get to a point where the internet in Africa has parity with the rest of the world, and parity means we get the V6 in or risk being left behind when the rest of the world goes that way (as they have to do, since there is no more v4).

Further to this, it is far cheaper to implement V6 as the infrastructure is expanded than have to go back and retrofit, if we don't do it now, we'll be facing a HUGE bill later when we're forced to do it anyway

Andrew


-----Original Message-----
From: Malick.Sy at swisscom.com [mailto:Malick.Sy at swisscom.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 1:21 PM
To: mark.tinka at seacom.mu; Andrew Alston
Cc: rpd at afrinic.net; afnog at afnog.org
Subject: Re: [afnog] What are the major challenges in enabling Services to run on IPv6?

Hi,
I was wondering, what good business need is there to push IPv6 to the network edge, specifically in Africa?
What would be the direct benefit to the customer or the service provider, of investing in configuring, deploying and migrating to v6. V4 address depletion is a reality, but in the Africa region, is there really a shortage of IP addresses to assign or is there more a lack of services to run on these IP addresses? Also, wouldn¹t the effort and expense to move to v6 In Africa, be better used, if spent on harnessing WiMax? rolling out fibre where possible? I creasing  Wifi coverage? rolling out DSL/VDSL/xDSL? Increasing peering points? creating alternatives to the current under sea cable transits (and reduce reliance on ACE, etc)?
With the relatively small penetration of broadband in Africa, should not efforts be spent addressing broadband penetration rates and access to information, rather than ³keeping up with the Jones² and rolling out technology for the sake of technology?

In Europe, I am only aware of France¹s Free who have a full native IPv6 deployment, all other providers are managing to provide services without too big an IPv6 footprint. In the Americas, I believe a number of educational institutions have native v6, and most Sps can probably provide it. My contention, IPv6 rollouts globally have been quite low speed and that is probably because there are other priorities for the Service providers.

So major challenges to enabling services on v6, I guess the demand for such services, is probably going to be a major factor.If there is no demand or minimal demand, and a current working system exists, why waste time on it?
Just my 2 cents.

..........................................
Best Regards,
Malick Sy
Sr. Network Engineer

Swisscom (Switzerland) Ltd.
Hospitality Services
2, chemin du Pavillon
Case Postale 2200
CH-1211 Genève 2


Desk Phone:+41 227 407 585
Cellular Phone:+ 41 794 426 765
Fax Number: +41 227 740 7542
Internet: www.swisscom.com/hospitality
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On 28/10/2014 07:18, "Mark Tinka" <mark.tinka at seacom.mu> wrote:

>On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 07:05:33 AM Andrew Alston
>wrote:
>
>> That challenge also prevents a
>> lot of providers from actually putting in the effort (and sometimes
>> expense) of rolling IPv6 all the way to the edge with a lack of
>> demand.  Its kinda a chicken and egg situation for many, no IPv6 at
>> the edge decreases the number of people running IPv6, we decreases
>> the demand for IPv6, which decreases the motivation to roll
>> IPv6 to the edge.
>
>I'm still reasonably disappointed in the lack of drive from retail
>providers to offer IPv6 to their customers, i.e., the
>broadband/consumer space.
>
>Granted, it is a lot more challenging to deliver IPv6 to large scale
>consumers (more so in Africa, where a lot of consumers are running data
>off the mobile networks).
>
>But I think that deployment of IPv6 toward end customers in a manner
>where they do not have to directly participate in the process is where
>we shall see the most gains.
>
>The old mantra still holds true - users don't care, as long as it
>works.
>
>Mark.


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