Unclear Business Case Hampers IPv6 Rollout in Europe
"Customers don't ask for IPv6," which is the main reason the technology is so slow to take off in Europe, said Nathalie Trenaman, IPv6 program manager at European Regional Internet Registry RIPE NCC, in an interview Monday. Many European countries score highly in numbers of IPv6 end users, but those statistics don't address the "quite poor" amount of local IPv6 content available and that many access providers continue to use only IPv4 addresses, she said. France, which came 16th in Tuesday's Asia Pacific Network Information Centre listing of percentage of IPv6 users by country, is acting to boost IPv6 take-up. The U.S. was second, with NTIA engaged in educational efforts (see 1608310069).
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If one asks access providers in the countries showing higher numbers of IPv6 end users why they've switched, the only answer is because they've run out of IPv4 addresses, Trenaman said. Greece and Portugal, ranked 6th and 9th, have experienced economic crises and providers unable to afford dwindling IPv4 addresses moved to the newer version, she said. Those providers could have used carrier grade network address translation (CGN) -- defined as the translation of private network addresses to public IPv4 addresses to allow small pools of public addresses to be shared -- to stretch out the availability of IPv4 addresses, but instead moved to IPv6 because CGN wouldn't have been scalable for the number of users involved, she said. "Luckily," there isn't much use of CGN in Europe because home routers tend to support IPv6 and are more reasonably priced than in other regions, she added.
The business case is still the main issue, Trenaman said. RIPE NCC (Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre) recently surveyed its 4,000 members on various issues, she said. The main reason businesses, ISPs and content providers gave for not transitioning to IPv6 was that customers don't ask, she said. Many people say IPv6 is costly and it's unclear what its benefits are, she said. The obvious answer is "business continuity," but that's an argument that's hard to sell to corporate boards, she said.
The additional costs for IPv6 aren't in equipment but in software, which requires scripts, billing and other functions to be updated, Trenaman said. In training courses, she often asks companies what their IPv4 address supply is. The average business has 1-1/2 years of IPv4 addresses left, but they will need 2-1/2 years to deploy IPv6, she said.
In response to a government request, French telecom regulator Arcep (Autorité de régulation des communications électroniques et des postes) submitted an action plan Sept. 30 for driving the switch to IPv6. It said the "current need to manage the dearth of IPv4 addresses is restricting certain applications and uses, which in turn restricts the fully open nature of the internet, as well as users' freedoms." France is "clearly committed" to making the transition, but its rate of progress has slowed over the past few years, especially for ISP deployments, it said.
Arcep floated a six-point action plan for speeding IPv6 take-up. Every government website and online service should be available in IPv6, to set an example, it said. Initial IPv6 training and continuing education courses should be ubiquitous, and opportunities for interaction between members of the community involved in making the transition should be sufficient. It urged better coordination between stakeholders and more information for users on the future viability of their devices and possible malfunctions due to IPv4 address rationing.
The U.K. Office of Communications "monitors IPv4 and IPv6 availability but does not have formal powers regarding its deployment," said its spokeswoman. Ofcom's latest comments on the subject were in a December "connected nations" report that included internet addressing. It said mobile operators are "generally looking to introduce IPv6 addressing" but further software upgrades or configuration changes within the network and consumer devices are needed before mobile operators can begin using the technology. In the meantime, mobile operators are using, and fixed operators are considering or trialing, CGN, it said.
At the time of the report, none of the major providers was offering IPv6 addresses to residential/nonbusiness users, Ofcom said, though most major ISPs said they intend to roll out IPv6 addressing in the coming year. BT said it would make the technology available by the end of 2016, Ofcom said. Sky announced Sept. 6 that 90 percent of its broadband customers are now IPv6-enabled. The U.K. "bounced back" since the creation of the IPv6 Council, IPv6 Forum President Latif Ladid told us. The council catapulted the U.K. from 74th to fifth in less than two years by convincing British ISPs and Sky to deploy the new service, he said.
One side-effect of the scarcity of IPv4 addresses is the growth of a brisk IPv4 market, Trenaman said. The addresses sell for $10-$15 each, making them too pricey for big ISPs with lots of customers, but a viable option for smaller enterprises, she said.