IPv6 News

Comcast today announced plans to conduct production-network trials of IPv6 technology this year. The trials are aimed at helping identify and solve any areas of difficulty involved in the transition to IPv6, and to determine what approach will be the easiest and most seamless for its customers, says Jason Livingood, Comcast’s Internet System Engineer.

Comcast will test three IPv6 transition mechanisms:

• Phase one will use 6rd, a technique developed by French ISP Free that allows for rapid deployment of IPv6 by tunneling IPv6 traffic over IPv4 addresses.

• Phase two will support native IPv4 and IPv6 traffic running side-by-side in an approach dubbed dual-stack. This is Comcast’s preferred method of transition to IPv6 and may require the carrier to reclaim unused blocks of IPv4 addresses.

• Phase three will test a technique developed by Comcast called Dual-Stack Lite, which uses network-address translation to share one IPv4 address among many customers.

Related Links:

IPv6 Information Center

Preparing for the IPv6 Transition Comcast Blog

Comcast Launches IPv6 Trials Network World

[Read more →]

All the talk early this year seems to be about LTE deployment to alleviate chronic Apple and other smartphones induced indigestion on the AT&T and other major Mobile Networks swamped by data traffic.

The telluric shift albeit the user will not care or should not notice is that when he or she will power on that smartphone or whatever the communicating Swiss Knife will be called, it will request an IP address to complete an IP based call. A device without an IP address will be rather difficult to reach and the ungodly NATword should not even be whispered. The comfort of the good old circuit switched network core will be gone in the LTE era.

It is rather timely, if not a bit last minute, that the GCF, the Global Certification Forum, announced a LTE device certification scheme to be ready by the end of 2010.

Verizon, as far as I know, is the only mobile network Operator so far who officially announced IPv6 support in their devices and stated that ” the device shall be assigned an IPv6 address whenever it attaches to the LTE network”.

Verizon’s commitment to IPv6 seems to be further underscored as ICSA, their independent conformity testing lab became the first one approved by NIST for USGv6 conformance testing. Congratulations, Verizon.

In the meantime, Telia Sonera claimed the world’s first commercial LTE deployment in Stockholm and Oslo in December. Has anyone confirmed what kind of IP addresses they are using, IPv4 and/or IPv6? They just announced the suppliers for their LTE network extension to 29 cities in Sweden and Norway. Let us hope the Nordic countries will continue to surprise us as they have done for a long time in telecommunications.

With all the LTE plans announced lately, it should not come as a surprise to see LTE as a prime discussion topic during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month. And while it will not have the starring role, IPv6 will be best supporting actor.

With the first LTE networks coming on-line later this year it will be interesting to track compliance and interoperability.

LTE should not be fragmented in too many Short Term Evolutions. The end-user community expects seamless high quality service, to them it is ancillary if is called LTE and works in IPv4 or IPv6.

Written by Yves Poppe, Director, Business Development IP Strategy

[Read more →]

Looking back at the year that just ended, here are the top ten most popular news, blogs, and industry news on CircleID in 2009 based on the overall readership of the posts. Congratulations to all the participants whose posts reached top readership in 2009 and best wishes to the entire community in 2010.

Top 10 Featured Blogs in 2009:

1. Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail Compromised – But How?
   
   by Terry Zink – Oct 08, 2009
2. A Closer Look at Iran’s State of Internet, Strange Transit Changes in Wake of Controversial Election
   
   by Jim Cowie – Jun 14, 2009
3. WiMAX vs. LTE
   
   by Paul Budde – Mar 10, 2009
4. China’s “Green Dam Youth Escort” Software
   
   by Rebecca MacKinnon – Jun 08, 2009
5. Verizon Mandates IPv6 Support for Next-Gen Cell Phones
   
   by Derek Morr – Jun 09, 2009
6. Cloud Computing Types: Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Private Cloud
   
   by Sam Johnston – Mar 06, 2009
7. Can’t Connect… Won’t Connect
   
   by Bill Thompson – May 13, 2009
8. The Cybersecurity Act of 2009
   
   by Steven Bellovin – Apr 13, 2009
9. Google AdSense Asks Publishers to Change Their Websites’ Privacy Policy
   
   by Dhaval Doshi – Mar 13, 2009
10. YouTube’s Fine – Analysts Don’t Understand Internet Peering
    
    by Brough Turner – Apr 16, 2009

Top 10 News in 2009:

1. Network Solutions Under Large Scale DDoS Attack, Millions of Websites Potentially Unreachable
   
   Jan 23, 2009
2. U.S. General Reserves Right to Use Physical Force, Even Nuclear, in Response to Cyberattack
   
   May 13, 2009
3. Google Cloud Storage Coming Within Weeks
   
   May 20, 2009
4. Finland First Country to Make Broadband a Legal Right
   
   Oct 14, 2009
5. SPECIAL: Updates from the ICANN Meetings in Sydney
   
   Jun 26, 2009
6. Google Rolling Out Its Services Over IPv6
   
   Jan 08, 2009
7. ICANN’s President and CEO Announces Resignation
   
   Mar 02, 2009
8. Iran’s Internet Censorship Most Sophisticated in the World
   
   Jun 19, 2009
9. Comcast Unleashes Trial DNS Redirection in Select States
   
   Jul 09, 2009
10. Latest Cybersquatting Stats from WIPO
    
    Mar 16, 2009

Top 10 Industry News in 2009 by sponsored posts*:

1. Facebook Selects MarkMonitor Antifraud Solutions to Combat Malware
   
   by MarkMonitor – Apr 30, 2009
2. .ORG First Open Top-Level Domain to be Signed with DNSSEC
   
   by PIR – Jun 02, 2009
3. Perspectives from a Nonprofit Domain Name Registry on Navigating the Social Media Frontier
   
   by PIR – Apr 24, 2009
4. Expanding Internet Access Driving Software Piracy, Study Says
   
   by MarkMonitor – May 22, 2009
5. A Seemingly Overwhelming Number of Important Documents Released by ICANN
   
   by MarkMonitor – Jun 02, 2009
6. MarkMonitor AntiFraud Solutions Combine Proven Antiphishing and Expert Antimalware Capabalities
   
   by MarkMonitor – Mar 23, 2009
7. DNSstuff.com Offers Trusteer Rapport Product to Help Users Boost Their Defenses Against Online Fraud
   
   by DNSstuff – Mar 23, 2009
8. dotMobi Names AutoTrader.mobi as Millionth Site Tested by Acclaimed mobiReady Tool
   
   by dotMobi – May 20, 2009
9. IP Rights in Digital Environment Key Element of Proposed Treaty
   
   by MarkMonitor – Apr 15, 2009
10. COCC Partners with MarkMonitor for Anti-Phishing Services
    
    by MarkMonitor – Mar 18, 2009

* Featured news updates from CircleID’s industry participants by more information here – see ‘Dedicated Marketing Channel’ section

Written by CircleID Reporter

[Read more →]

According to reports, China Telecom has announced a complete schedule of IPv6 deployment including commercial trials currently underway. A full commercial launch is scheduled for 2012 while retreating from IPv4 network and services will begin in 2015. China Telecom has also announced various goals as part of the IPv6 transition which includes building a self-supporting IPv6 business and upgrading enterprise and residential gateways to support IPv6 access for government, enterprise and residential customers. (Source and China Telecom Officially Announce Commercial IPv6)

[Read more →]

When our G20 leaders met in Pittsburgh last week, stimulus and recovery were foremost on their minds. Needless to dwell on the ravages of sub-prime lending and outsized bonuses rewarding dismal performance. It is good to see that, in today’s global economy, Information Technology is recognized as a major driver of economic growth and quality of life. A recent OECD report puts 2008 telecommunications revenues of the thirty members at 1.2 trillion dollar or 3% of GDP. Looking at the G20 countries, they allocated 2 trillion US dollars in general stimulus including over 100 billion in IT according to the September ITIF newsletter [PDF]. Ranking at the top of IT spending as percentage of their stimulus plan are Korea with 24%, France with 17% and Japan with 12%. As % of GDP we find Japan, Korea and the USA making the largest IT related stimulus investments. In absolute dollar terms this translates into the USA as number one with 41 billion dollar, Japan with 32 billion and France with 5.5 billion allocated to IT stimulus.

Canada’s 36 billion stimulus package (2.9% of GDP) includes 3 billion for IT. Herein we find 790 million dollar for smart grid technology and 500 million for a ‘health infoway’. In the meantime our cousins to the South allocated 11 billion for smart grids out of their 41 billion IT package. Not to be outdone, the European Union will spend 5 billion dollars on smart grids.

Networks requiring vast amounts of sensors such as intelligent buildings and smart grids have long been considered ideal environments for Greenfield IPv6 deployment. The timing of the Cisco announcement linking IPv6 and smart grids is certainly no coincidence. There is a money trail to be followed and IPv6 will ride the smart grid coattails.

An Industry Roundtable at APEC-Tel 40 last week, in which I had the pleasure to participate, saw Verizon and AT&T address the topic of smart grids from a telecom provider perspective. An IPv6 workshop was also part of the program

Just provide an abundance of routable IP addresses and things big and small will communicate. To let the internet run out of IP addresses is just not an option, the stakes are too high. The IT activity sector is expected to spawn a sizeable employment multiplier and new wealth generation effect, further compounded by important broadband access stimulus initiatives. We can expect to see IPv6 play a modest, largely unsung, but essential role in the big scheme of things.

Written by Yves Poppe, Director, Business Development IP Strategy

[Read more →]