Re: IPv6 networking: Bad news for small biz

Steven Bellovin wrote:
> I do not agree.  I remember discussing the concept with folks, a couple
> of years before that; we agreed that NATs would be very challenging
> because of the need for protocol-dependent packet inspection and
> modification.  Add to that an underestimate of how long it would take
> before v6 was adopted, and a gross underestimate of how large the
> Internet would be -- remember, IPng happened before the Web explosion --
> and it was very easy to ignore the possibility of NAT, let alone the
> renumbering and (questionable) firewall benefits of it.  In retrospect,
> sure, but in 1993-1994?  It was not at all obvious.
No doubt.

Its easy to have 20/20 hindsight regarding "IPv6 failures" to become 
ideally acceptable across the board. While there were warnings of 
complexities, there were also clearly many market forces going on 
between 1992 and 1996 that perhaps didn't allow IPv6 to be taken 
seriously.
Speaking as one of the early vendors to offer fast entry ISP hosting 
commercial solutions,  I can  tell you for sure, IPv6 was not on my 
radar.  The main reality was that the internet was still coming out of 
the academia/federal contract only closet into the commercial arena.
Thanks to Gore's 1991 effort and eventual infamous "invention of the 
internet" with the then new 1992 administration first white house 
initiative to address the digital divide by bring the internet to the 
mass public. Many may recall the new presidency 1994 Superhighway Summit:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Superhighway_Summit

Only then, did "things" begin to take off, at least when it came to 
pricing, affordability and 24x7 connectivity.
I personally feel the market failures of IPv6 is partially related to 
a terrible inconsistent technical "What is it, how do we migration" 
considerations, masked with conflicts with new business profit model, 
confusing with current IPv4 holders letting go their possession, 
marketing and policy problems and also unfortunate conflict of having 
to try to change direction to IPv6 when the market was not only still 
trying to catch up with IPv4 solutions but also trying to integrate it 
with the then current commercial solutions of the then blossoming 
telecommunications industry.
A key reality back then was that 24x7 connectivity was still limited 
to the BBS modem dialup hosting systems, early ISP and private 
corporate environments with leased line ISDN, T1 environments, 
including download only satellite feeds like Planet Connect.  The 
topology was still star oriented, i.e. organized with local, state, 
region country routing like with Fidonet and and less peer to peer.
24x7 connectivity at all levels only became pretty mush feasibly 
possible with the 1982 anti-trust breakup of Ma Bell (AT&T) and the 
slow emergence of new ISP competition with lower cost entry points and 
eventually new business models using fixed-fee toll charges.  The 
latter finally allowed the end-users, originally isolated to local 
hosting services, to begin roaming the new "Wild Wild West" of the 
global internet-connected world - it also wrote the writing on the 
wall and began kill our horizontal market position too. :)

--
Hector Santos, CTO
http://www.santronics.com
http://hector.wildcatblog.com