Subject: Re: Consequences of 6to4

From: Dan Lanciani <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 16:54:06 -0400 (EDT)

"Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]> wrote:

|> It's relevant unless you eliminate 6to4 and any other scheme that
|> generates portable v6 address space from v4 space.  6to4 is actually 
|> rather interesting in that it has the potential to overtake "native"
|v6
|> addressing (especially considering Microsoft's treatment of 6to4 as a 
|> first-class citizen).  
|
|The main advantage of 6to4 is that we can jumpstart IPv6 quickly,
|without requiring any tunnel configuration. We get a solution that is as
|easy to deploy as a NAT, but which does enable global addressing and is
|thus markedly superior in several important communication scenarios,
|e.g. peer-to-peer applications, voice and video communication,
|multi-player games.

I agree; I think 6to4 is a great thing.  In one swoop it actually makes most
all of the other v6 work useful to many, many end users.

|Note however that these scenarios do not require "portable" addresses.

I didn't say that 6to4 requires a portable address.  I said that if
you have portable v4 address space you can use 6to4 to create portable
v6 address space.  Lots of v6 address space...

|As for the other consequences of 6to4, the main one will be to raise
|expectations. 6to4 enables a user to derive an IPv6 prefix from a single
|global IPv4 address. Many solutions will be using this capability, e.g.
|providing global addresses to multiple devices, or using multiple
|addresses for different functions within a single computer. This imply
|that the "native v6" ISP will be expected to provide users with a
|prefix, not a single host address -- otherwise, the native v6 solution
|will be perceived as inferior to the existing 6to4 solution.

Yes, and that's going to annoy the ISP no end.

				Dan Lanciani
				[email-masked]
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From: Dan Lanciani <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 23:21:30 -0400 (EDT)

Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]> wrote:

|> |As for the other consequences of 6to4, the main one will be to raise
|> |expectations. 6to4 enables a user to derive an IPv6 prefix from a
|single
|> |global IPv4 address. Many solutions will be using this capability,
|e.g.
|> |providing global addresses to multiple devices, or using multiple
|> |addresses for different functions within a single computer. This
|imply
|> |that the "native v6" ISP will be expected to provide users with a
|> |prefix, not a single host address -- otherwise, the native v6
|solution
|> |will be perceived as inferior to the existing 6to4 solution.
|> 
|> Yes, and that's going to annoy the ISP no end.
|
|Uh, I don't perceive IPv6 as a tool to annoy the ISPs.

I didn't say it was.  In fact, I'm sure some ISPs see IPv6 as a great tool
to extract more money from end users by replacing NAT'ed addresses with
countable v6 addresses. :) What will annoy ISPs is the perception (caused
by 6to4) that an entire prefix should be the norm.  As you observed.

|ISPs are selling
|a product that users use to run applications and get services. ISP
|services compare in terms of how many applications you can run
|(transparency), how fast (bandwidth), how reliably, how easily and at
|what price. The price and the offer are mostly determined by cost and
|competition; the cost depends largely on the underlying technology, how
|easy it is to manage, how many support calls do we expect from users,
|etc.

I think that might be a bit of an oversimplification...

				Dan Lanciani
				[email-masked]

---

From: "Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 16:25:18 -0700

> Yes, and that's going to annoy the ISP no end.

Uh, I don't perceive IPv6 as a tool to annoy the ISPs. ISPs are selling
a product that users use to run applications and get services. ISP
services compare in terms of how many applications you can run
(transparency), how fast (bandwidth), how reliably, how easily and at
what price. The price and the offer are mostly determined by cost and
competition; the cost depends largely on the underlying technology, how
easy it is to manage, how many support calls do we expect from users,
etc. If we provide technology that let ISP provide better services at a
reasonable cost, there will be more demand, the market will expand, etc.
Everybody will be happier.

-- Christian Huitema