Sprint: Ready with IPv6 when customers are

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: CAROLYN DUFFY MARSAN'S ISP NEWS REPORT
06/15/05
Today's focus: Sprint: Ready with IPv6 when customers are

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Sprint has been quietly offering IPv6 services for many years
* Links related to ISP News Report
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: Sprint: Ready with IPv6 when customers are

By Carolyn Duffy Marsan

While other top-tier ISPs including Verio, MCI and Global
Crossing are announcing early customers of IPv6, the
next-generation Internet Protocol, Sprint has been quietly
offering the emerging service to government and enterprise
customers for many years.

Sprint has supported IPv6 since 1997, when it began working on
the 6Bone, an experimental research network for testing IPv6.
Today, Sprint says it has 350 customers taking advantage of that
free service.

"Initially, it was academia and some hardware vendors," says Rob
Rockell, manager of IP solutions development at Sprint. "We're
seeing growth in the enterprise sector, particularly in the
federal government. The [U.S. Department of Defense] represents
a large portion of the people."

Sprint says most of the usage of its IPv6 service is for
experimentation. However, Sprint still doesn't see much
commercial demand for IPv6 other than as a check-off box on
corporate requests for proposals.

"If you look at the traffic ratios of IPv4 to IPv6, it's almost
entirely IPv4 still," Rockell says. "We don't see a lot of prime
time IPv6 traffic."

How and when the ISP industry will migrate to IPv6 is an issue
for much debate. IPv6 is an upgrade to the Internet's main
communications protocol that was developed by the IETF.

IPv6 promises easier administration, tighter security and an
enhanced addressing scheme when compared to IPv4, the Internet's
current protocol. IPv6, which uses a 128-bit addressing scheme,
supports a virtually limitless number of uniquely identified
systems on the 'Net, while IPv4 supports only a few billion
systems because it uses a 32-bit addressing scheme.

Although the IPv6 protocol was finalized a decade ago, the
technology is just beginning to attract the attention of
enterprise customers in the U.S. The Defense Department is one
of the first and largest organizations to commit to IPv6
migration. Other early adopters include Defense contractors and
high-tech equipment vendors such as Cray, an MCI customer, and
Juniper, a Verio customer.

"If a customer has an interest or requirement, Sprint has a way
to meet those needs today," says Steve Parrott, IP product
management for Sprint. "There isn't a specialized IPv6 product
solution. If we see that demand and requirement, we'll move down
that path. Today, it's just a capability of the network today
for those customers that have an interest."

Sprint's IPv6 offering is an overlay on its IPv4 network. The
IPv6 traffic is tunneled over the IPv4 backbone, rather than
being dual stack IPv4/IPv6 or native IPv6. In addition, Sprint
has seven routers in the U.S. that are IPv6 only.

"We commonly see requests for proposals that ask what's Sprint's
IPv6 strategy, but it's mainly a compliance issue," Parrott
says. "It just hasn't made the leap from a requirement to usage,
even from our government customers. That day will come, and when
that day comes we know we'll be there."

Parrott says one factor holding up enterprise usage of IPv6 is
that the IETF hasn't finished the standards for multi-homing, a
technique that allows users to share network services across
multiple ISPs.

RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS

Sprint's history with IPv6
http://www.sprintv6.net/Sprintv6.html

Network World Radio: Get ready for IPv6
http://www.networkworld.com/research/2005/0523radio.html?rl

AT&T collaborates with Microsoft
Network World, 06/13/05
http://www.networkworld.com/nlisp2609

Dearth of standard stalls Ethernet services
Network World, 06/13/05
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/061305-vpls-nni.html?rl
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Carolyn Duffy Marsan

Carolyn Duffy Marsan is a senior editor with Network World and
covers emerging Internet technologies and standards. Reach her
at <mailto:cmarsan@nww.com>
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Oracle
SAN and SMP, Pooling or Provisioning - what does it all mean?

Find out with the Oracle Grid Computing Glossary! Like any
technology, grid computing is made up of a specialized set of
terms and acronyms. This comprehensive glossary provides a
definition of important grid-related terms.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=106740
_______________________________________________________________
ARCHIVE LINKS

Archive of the ISP News Report newsletter:
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/isp/index.html

Wide Area Network Research Center:
http://www.networkworld.com/topics/wan.html
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management.
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