2010-11-16

IPv6 and Trading Standards

Well, one of the fun comments at 6::uk launch was the idea that you cannot call yourself an ISP unless you route all IP protocols in use on the Internet, i.e. IPv4 and IPv6.

Well, that got me thinking. Read the box on the average router and it says things like "enables you to access the Internet" (I was reading a ZyXEL router box).

But what is "the Internet"? Well it clearly includes more than just IPv4 hosts now. There are parts of the world you cannot access if you only have IPv4.

One idea was an "IPv6 ready" or "Internet HD" type product marking to get router manufacturers to make it clear they handle IPv6, but maybe we need a stick as well as a carrot.

Would trading standards get involved in telling manufacturers that unless they clearly mark products as only able to access the "old Internet" then they will be taken to court for mis-describing their products?

Just an idea.

6 comments:

  1. You are not the first one to suggest "Internet HD" for systems which can access both the legacy IPv4 internet and the new IPv6 internet.

    (See how you sneak in the term 'legacy' to give IPv4 a bad name ;))

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you bought a car which was labeled "enables you to access the roads", you wouldn't complain if you couldn't carry a 40 ton load in it.

    And the Zyxel (for example) does enable me to access the Internet with IPv6 - I use PPPoE and there it is!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, imagine it the other way around - a router which *only* does IPv6 and not IPv4. Even with a PPPoE option, on its own you cannot "access the Internet".

    ReplyDelete
  4. "If you bought a car which was labeled "enables you to access the roads", you wouldn't complain if you couldn't carry a 40 ton load in it"

    You would complain if you bought a car and then found it didn't work on any roads built after 2009. Which I think is a more accurate analogy.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Similarly for web & server hosting companies. Many of them will rent me a server that's only connected to _part_ of the internet. I need to ask rapidswitch again what their plans are for ipv6, I asked a year or so ago and they basically didn't have any. I would hope that they do now.

    I may have to move but I don't think I can find anywhere else that has what I need at the same price level and I can live with an HE ipv6 tunnel for a little longer I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  6. It doesn't help that major providers like cPanel still don't support IPv6 and don't seem to be particularly forthcoming on when they might get around to it; I suspect that's holding back a lot of hosting companies right now...

    ReplyDelete

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