{"id":51895,"date":"2012-06-06T08:44:50","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T06:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=51895"},"modified":"2012-06-06T11:06:31","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T09:06:31","slug":"ipv6-is-sa-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/51895-ipv6-is-sa-ready.html","title":{"rendered":"IPv6: Is SA ready?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Telkom\u2019s<\/a> IP Connect network is IPv4-only, but according to Graham Beneke<\/a>, network engineer at Neology<\/a>, there are ways for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in SA to work around the limitation to provide IPv6 addresses.<\/p>\n

The Internet Society has deemed today (6 June 2012) \u201cWorld IPv6 Launch Day\u201d and has arranged that a number of large ISPs, home networking equipment manufacturers, and websites participate in the event.<\/p>\n

Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are needed to route packets around a network, including the Internet, and many industry bodies have been warning that the number of addresses is close to running out.<\/p>\n

IP version 6 (IPv6) was developed to replace IPv4 and offers around 340 undecillion (which is 340 followed by 36 zeroes) as opposed to the 4 billion or so IPv4 addresses.<\/p>\n

IPcalypse<\/h3>\n

Much has been written about the imminent exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, with some prominent geeks and techies predicting that IPv4 would be commonly used for a number of years still.<\/p>\n

So, is the Internet\u2019s sky really falling?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Asia-Pacific region is already in the rationing phase of IPv4 address allocations,\u201d said Beneke, who is also co-Chair of the Internet Service Providers\u2019 Association<\/a> working group. \u201cThe European region is expected to reach the same phase before the end of this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

What this means in more technical terms, Beneke explained, is that there are only enough IPv4 addresses available for the NAT (network address translation) gateways inside the operator networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany users in these regions are only able to host publicly reachable services on IPv6 addresses,\u201d Beneke said.<\/p>\n

\"Graham

Graham Beneke - Neology<\/p><\/div>\n

Benefit to users<\/h3>\n

Asked how users would benefit from a switch to IPv6, Beneke explained that as IPv4 addresses run out, network operators will be forced to stop providing customers with public IPs on their Internet services.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarge NATs will be placed in the network cores and features like port forwarding and UPnP will no longer be available,\u201d Beneke said.<\/p>\n

Those using IPv6 will not be affected by this and hosted services, peer-to-peer and protocols like VoIP will continue to work without problems.<\/p>\n

Beneke warned that users on certain operating systems may experience slow downs or latency to some sites if their system attempts to tunnel to an IPv6 website.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost recent releases of the popular OSs will automatically choose the optimal protocol based on available connections,\u201d Beneke said.<\/p>\n

Beneke said that users can test the IPv6 status of their PC by visiting\u00a0http:\/\/test-ipv6.co.za\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Is SA ready?<\/h3>\n

Commenting on South Africa\u2019s readiness, Beneke said that Neology has been running IPv6 natively for over a year and that \u201ca number of ISPs\u201d are getting IPv6 connectivity from them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also peer with a number of other networks at JINX [Johannesburg Internet Exchange] who are at various stages of their IPv6 roll-out,\u201d Beneke said.<\/p>\n

Beneke also punted Neology\u2019s \u201cneoSIX\u201d range of products that can be used to provide IPv6 services over IPv4.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018neoSIX\u2019 is currently being used to IPv6-enable the MyBroadband website,\u201d Beneke said.<\/p>\n

Using IPv6 rapid deployment technology (6RD, which Neology also provides, Beneke pointed out), it is also practical to provide South African ADSL users with IPv6 connectivity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlong with 6RD ADSL routers that are already available in South Africa a user gets an automatically configured IPv6 connection,\u201d Beneke said.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

World IPv6 day welcomed by SA stakeholders<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

IPv6 Day: MyBroadband joins in<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

IPv4 IP addresses now finished and klaar<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Telkom\u2019s wholesale ADSL product only allows IPv4 addresses, but that\u2019s not a problem, explains Neology\u2019s Graham Beneke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":51897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[5898,35,5602,12321,771,459,1067,12303],"class_list":["post-51895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-graham-beneke","tag-headline","tag-internet-service-providers-association","tag-internet-society","tag-ipv6","tag-ispa","tag-neology","tag-world-ipv6-launch-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51931,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51895\/revisions\/51931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}