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Re: one data point regarding native IPv6 support

2011-06-10 11:23:57
At the risk of piling on, I can't resist the opportunity to try to one-up Ned's 
story.

While in the UK this year, I had the misfortune to need to call BT for support 
on my broken home Internet connection.  In the middle of the usual mind-numbing 
"we will force you to walk through every idiotic step that you already know is 
irrelevant after thirty years in the business,"  the phone support guy told me 
to "Click on the pulldown for 'Configure one-pee-vee-six' and set it to Off."  
Not only was this totally irrelevant, and not only did he routinely make me 
turn off the very protocol we want to enable, but he called that protocol "one 
pee v6" instead of "eye pee v6."   And when I was stupid enough to correct him, 
he wouldn't go any further until I admitted that he knew best, and that I 
should call it "one pee v6" rather than "eye pee v6."    Needless to say, I 
didn't bother asking about BT's plans to support IPv6 -- oops, I mean 1Pv6.

No need to ask.  If BT can't even spell IP, we are a11 d00med.  -- Nathaniel


On Jun 9, 2011, at 6:13 PM, ned+ietf(_at_)mauve(_dot_)mrochek(_dot_)com wrote:

You folks have had it easy in your interactions with ISPs. When I tried not 
too
long ago with various ISPs in my area, I was unable to reach anyone at either
of the big ISPs who knew what "IPv6" even meant. Both promised callbacks,
neither did.

The more interesting response was from a small ISP. They knew exactly what I
was talking about, and told me (a) The IPv4 address shortage is nothing but a
"scare tactic", (b) They currently have no plans to offer IPv6, and (c) If 
they
ever did offer it "would only be with T1/T3 services, Colocation, and Managed
Servers and not DSL".

Those are verbatim quotes from their response.

And here's another data point, this time in the SOHO router space. My new
router is advertised as being "IPv6 ready", but the firmware it came with has
no IPv6 support whatsoever. When I contacted the vendor about this, I was
informed that I could get a special firmware build that supports IPv6, but it
would be an "as-is" thing based on an earlier release so there may be some 
loss
of functionality in other areas.

I then asked why they don't have support in their current product, I was told
it's because they are worried about their support staff being inundated with
questions and problems. Given the dearth of IPv6 support from other vendors in
this product area, I can't say I blame them.

Anyone who doesn't believe we have a major marketing problem here isn't paying
attention.

                              Ned
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