Sigh.
You'd think they would have learned by now.
"A native IPv6 network will restore end-to-end connectivity with a vastly
expanded address space..."
On Jan 5, 2011, at 11:56 PM, Richard L. Barnes wrote:
This seems like a document that might interest some on this list...
From: "Robert Cannon"
<Robert(_dot_)Cannon(_at_)fcc(_dot_)gov<mailto:Robert(_dot_)Cannon(_at_)fcc(_dot_)gov>>
Date: January 5, 2011 11:24:51 AM EST
Subject: FCC IPv6 Working Paper Released
Last week the FCC released a new working paper Potential Impacts on
Communications From IPv4 Exhaustion & IPv6 Transition.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-303870A1.pdf
Abstract
The Internet is in transition. The original address space, IPv4, is nearly
exhausted; the Internet is in the progress of migrating to the new IPv6 address
space.
The Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) developed in the late 1970s has the
capacity for about 4 billion unique addresses. It would have been hard to
imagine in the 1970s that 4 billion addresses were not going to be enough. But
by the early 1990s, Internet engineers recognized that the supply of addresses
was relatively limited compared to likely demand, and they set to work
designing a successor to IPv4. They developed a new Internet Protocol, IPv6,
with a vastly increased address space: 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses.
Broadband Internet access has become essential to the United States and the
rest of the world. The exhaustion of IPv4 addresses and the transition to IPv6
could result in significant, but not insurmountable, problems for broadband
Internet services. In the short term, to permit the network to continue to
grow, engineers have developed a series of kludges. These kludges include more
efficient use of the IPv4 address resource, conservation, and the sharing of
IPv4 addresses through the use of Network Address Translation (NAT). While
these provide partial mitigation for IPv4 exhaustion, they are not a long-term
solution, increase network costs, and merely postpone some of the consequences
of address exhaustion without solving the underlying problem. Some of these
fixes break end-to-end connectivity, impairing innovation and hampering
applications, degrading network performance, and resulting in an inferior
version of the Internet. These kludges require capital investment and ongoing
operational costs by network service providers, diverting investment from other
business objectives. Network operators will be confronted with increased costs
to offer potentially inferior service.
The short term solutions are necessary because there is not enough time to
completely migrate the entire public Internet to "native IPv6" where end users
can communicate entirely via IPv6. Network protocol transitions require
significant work and investment, and with the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses
looming, there is insufficient time to complete the full IPv6 transition.
But the short-term solutions are problematic. The "solution to the solution" is
to complete the transition to a native IPv6 network. A native IPv6 network
will restore end-to-end connectivity with a vastly expanded address space, will
improve network performance, and should decrease costs. Completing the
transition of the public Internet to IPv6 will take time.
FCC Staff Working Papers are intended to stimulate discussion and critical
comment within the FCC, as well as outside the agency, on issues that may
affect communications policy. The analyses and conclusions set forth are those
of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the FCC, other
Commission staff members, or any Commissioner.
Initial feedback on the paper has been positive. If you have any question,
please feel free to contact me.
Robert
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Robert Cannon
Senior Counsel for Internet Law
Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis
Federal Communications Commission
202 418 2421
** Non Public :: For Internal Use Only **
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