IPv6 not making much progress

“Each of those wireless data devices will need an Internet address,” Labovitz said. “Things are starting to reach a boil here. It is easy to poke fun at predictions of the end of the Internet. But there really is a limit to IP addresses in the IPv4 address space and there are no other proposals on the table.”

Labovitz and Scott Lekel-Johnson, Principle Software Engineer, cited a number of reasons for the slow IPv6 adoption, led by the cost of upgrades and political concerns about the loss of control of the IP address space. The U.S. Commerce Department has estimated the cost of IPv6 adoption at $25 billion, and it’s an expense that doesn’t begin to pay off until other service providers also make the change.

“It’s like Metcalfe’s law in reverse – an IPv6 network isn’t valuable until there are a lot of IPv6 endpoints to connect,” Labovitz said.

Arbor released its study results in hopes of adding real data points to the growing chorus of concern, he added.