[6bone] report of 6bone planning BOF

[Jonathan Guthrie]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 11:10:33PM +0100, Jeroen Massar wrote:
> Jonathan Guthrie wrote:
 
> > On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 10:35:08AM -0800, Bob Fink wrote:
  
> > > The 6bone phaseout proposal was discussed with a strong 
> > consensus reached 
> > > on a pTLA allocation cutoff date of Jan 1, 2004 and a 6bone 
> > turn off date 
> > > of June 6, 2006 (6/6/6).
 
> > I think it's insane to set a date for the end of the 6bone 
> > when there is no replacement for it in the USA.
 
> Remind me again about why americans are allowed to only
> think of theirselves.

Why American's are allowed to only think of themselves?  Are you
telling me that you don't use ANY services that have any presence at
all in the US?  That's a pretty tall claim.  This Internet thing is
about communications.  Communications implies that both ends can,
well communicate.  Cutting off one side or another arbitrarily will
result in reduced value to both sides.

For what it's worth, it seems to me that in the whole "let's schedule
the destruction of the 6bone" discussion, the commentary has been
dominated by people in Europe how have been thinking only of themselves.

> There are many countries which
> don't have IPv6 at all.

Then the date for destroying the nest of tunnels that is the 6bone
should not be scheduled until all of them have native IPv6 service,
too.  I didn't write about them because I can't speak for them, I
can only speak for myself.

> But the US certainly has 
> *Grab stats*

> 76

> Now say again that there is no IPv6 in the US?

Okay.  There are no IPv6 providers in the US.  That I can find.  I've
been talking about this for a month, now, and nobody on this list has
attempted to enlighten me so I conclude that nobody else knows of any
in the US, either.  You certainly don't, or you would have named one.
I've looked, and I haven't been able to find any.

Note, please, that the fact that somebody has chosen to purchase a block
of addresses does not imply that they have connectivity for sale or
even that they intend to.

What I really need is 2B ISDN dial-up with fixed addresses.  However,
even if someone is selling this service it doesn't matter because I
know of no equipment I can use for my end on that sort of connection.
I will admit that I haven't looked too hard for that.  (What would be
the point?)

> Maybe you should start kicking around your ISP's a bit more?

"Kicking around"?  Just exactly WHAT kind of pull am I expected to
have with my ISP?  As I've said before, threatening to leave won't
cut it.  "Give me IPv6 connectivity or I'll disconnect completely from
the Internet" isn't a credible threat.

> There are enough ways of getting IPv6 in europe so why
> should that be so different from the US?

I don't know.  My problem is that nobody who is pushing a rapid
destruction of the 6bone realizes that the conditions are different
in places that aren't right exactly where they are.

If I were to be forced to guess, I'd guess that the real problem is
the amount of money invested in current infrastructure that would
have to be written off unless the equipment purchased by that money
can be somehow upgraded.  From what I can see, the Lucent Max TNT
that I connect to cannot.

> You should also note that 2006 is in 3 years. There
> will change a load of things before that date.

There will?  Maybe, maybe not.  Your crystal ball isn't any clearer than
mine.  I predict that the ILEC-based ISPs and the cable companies will
have the bulk of the US Internet access business in 2006 and none of
those companies has shown the slightest interest in IPv6 or has any
intention of moving any faster than they possibly can on this issue.

Of course, when you really get right down to it, what I really object
to is setting a calendar date on something that doesn't really have a
time element to it.  What is necessary to make the dismantling of the
6bone a good idea is about how widely IPv6 is deployed in production,
not about when some date rolls around.   That's why setting a date,
even one far in the future, until the basic conditions for making the
6bone irrelevant is not well considered.
-- 
Jonathan Guthrie (jguthrie@brokersys.com)
Sto pro veritate