[6bone] pTLA request by Euro6IX project for

[Bob Fink]

Joao,

At 09:23 AM 8/14/2002 +0200, Joao Luis Silva Damas wrote:
>I see,
>  in that case I guess we better start creating the 4Bone, for newvie ISPs 
> in IPv4 and people developing new applications  that benefit from IPv4 
> transport.
>Come on, these two cases were OK up to the point where people could not 
>get any other type of IPv6 addresses but now they are just normal businness.

The problem is that those wanting to experiment with, test or try IPv6 
cannot do so today as IPv6 service is not even remotely as available as 
IPv4 service is.

I am routinely asked by networks and sites (and even individuals) how to 
get involved with IPv6 and where to connect. The current list of sTLA 
holders is so small, and in most cases for profit (yes, some are not for 
profit, but aren't in the business of providing service outside of their 
own community) that sites and networks trying v6 mostly have no 
alternatives for connectivity.

So they turn to pTLAs and many of them aren't willing to provide general 
tunneling to all comers either as they generally try to serve a community 
of their own interest.

Freenet6 helps, but can't be expected to handle all the demand.

Then there is 6to4, which is not really ready for many of these folks as it 
is evolving and requires knowledge to get it going that many don't have. 
Hopefully it will eventually take up the slack.

So we continue to provide 6bone pTLAs in the hope that we will get 
sufficient deployment that IPv6 will be widely available.

Anyway, just having production IPv6 addresses available from RIRs does not 
make IPv6 widely available, and affordable. Also, having a 6bone does not 
make IPv6 not usable, rather it enables it.


>Only case A really merits 6Bone addresses, because items in that category 
>would have the potential to disrupt an operating Internet using IPv6 in 
>some of its areas.

I haven't seen many cases where an experiment might disable the operating 
IPv6 Internet, tho Teredo might be one (I don't really know). If there are 
experiments that should not connect to the IPv6 Internet they don't really 
need the 6bone as they should probably be tested in a completely isolated 
manner.

The 6bone has been used, and continues to be used, to test and try many 
things by folks that otherwise can not get production address space and 
often don't really want it yet.


>I hope this group will be able to move on and take the step of declaring 
>IPv6 usable.

I don't believe that this group (presuming you mean the 6bone community) 
feels that IPv6 is not usable, rather the collective 6bone community is 
continually trying to enable IPv6 and make it more widely available.


Thanks,

Bob