News Amazon’s AWS new charge for using IPv4 is expected to rake in up to $1B per year — change should speed IPv6 adoption

[Admin]

On Thursday, Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced a new charge for customers with public IPv4 addresses. It had warned a new pricing plan was going to be put into place last July, but new estimates suggest that it could make an extra $1 billion per annum from this change.

Amazon’s AWS new charge for using IPv4 is expected to rake in up to $1B per year — change should speed IPv6 adoption : Read more

 

[Rob_mc_1]

IPv6 is not going to happen. Windows 2000 had native IPv6 support so it is not a client issue.
Not all ISPs support IPv6. Bell Canada doesn't for example. What I see is the biggest hold up is Cable and DSL modems. Their firmware, UI and default settings is designed around IPv4. Most modems in use are already past their EOL. If they had to cut over to IPv6, new firmware would have to be pushed down to them. They would have to convince manufacturers to build new firmware for EOL devices. At the end of the day, ISPs would need to replace millions of devices overnight. No ISP will want to pay for that. I can't imagine the e-waste it would cause.

Another issue. Prefixes are assigned by an ISP. Have fun redoing you internal static addresses on you key devices if you change ISP. At least with NAT you can just drop in a replacement ISP.

Edit: One last note. Rural areas tend to get hand me down equipment when Cities get upgraded equipment. That is due to a low ROI on new infrastructure on for a handful of people. If there is an IPv6 cutover, there will be those without internet.

 

[greenreaper]

In the UK, it's Virgin Media that's the big blocker. That said, if some sites just aren't available over IPv4 then that could force their hand as it will become a competitive pressure.

There will come a tipping point because it is now a non-trivial amount for a VM. Vultr is already offering IPv6-only VMs on its smallest plan for a $1/month discount, IIRC.

 

[Rob_mc_1]

I

In the UK, it's Virgin Media that's the big blocker. That said, if some sites just aren't available over IPv4 then that could force their hand as it will become a competitive pressure.

There will come a tipping point because it is now a non-trivial amount for a VM. Vultr is already offering IPv6-only VMs on its smallest plan for a $1/month discount, IIRC.

I could also see pressure go in the other direction. ISPs have their own data centers and won't be as phased by what AWS is doing. That instead will put pressure on people to secure IPv4 access or become irrelevant. As long as the average person can watch YouTube, buy things on Amazon or access Reddit and Wikipedia there will be little impact.

 

[mac_angel]

okay, but no more trashing me for still asking, "Can it play Crysis"

 

[Daniel15]

For hosting services, what it comes down to is that you really only need IPv4 on a limited number of edge nodes (load balancers and CDN nodes) that users directly connect to. Most servers aren't directly user-facing and would be fine only having an IPv6 address. This is what large companies like Google and Meta do - their internal network (both in their data centers and in their offices) are mostly IPv6-only.

IPv6 is not going to happen

~40% of traffic to Google and ~37% of traffic to Facebook are going over IPv6 (https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html, https://www.facebook.com/ipv6/).

It really depends on where you live. It's mostly going great in the USA. Around 50% of traffic to Google and 60% of traffic to Facebook is going over IPv6. In the USA, most mobile networks are already IPv6-only, using 464XLAT and/or DNS64 for connectivity to legacy IPv4-only servers. They do NOT use CGNAT like in some other countries. T-mobile did this first, then some of the other carriers followed. Some aren't entirely IPv6 but they're 90%+ IPv6.

Comcast rolled out IPv6 way back in 2011. By 2015, 70% of their customers had IPv6 provisioned (https://corporate.comcast.com/comca...-of-the-end-its-just-the-end-of-the-beginning) and I think that's closer to 85% today. That means customers that actually have an active IPv6 prefix.

What I see is the biggest hold up is Cable and DSL modems

Any modems from the past 5-10 years should support IPv6. I don't think any major ISPs (at least in the USA) are shipping modems that don't support IPv6 any more. If you're renting a modem from an ISP and it's very old, you can just ask them for a new one. That's one of the main reasons for renting a modem - you can upgrade it over time.

Another issue. Prefixes are assigned by an ISP. Have fun redoing you internal static addresses on you key devices if you change ISP. At least with NAT you can just drop in a replacement ISP.

This is what ULAs (unique local addresses) are for. Your devices can have multiple IPv6 addresses, like a ULA for use within your network, and a public IP for internet access. Both of them can be assigned using SLAAC.

NAT is a horrible hack and I'll be glad to see it gone.

 

[subspruce]

IPv6 is not going to happen. Windows 2000 had native IPv6 support so it is not a client issue.
Not all ISPs support IPv6. Bell Canada doesn't for example. What I see is the biggest hold up is Cable and DSL modems. Their firmware, UI and default settings is designed around IPv4. Most modems in use are already past their EOL. If they had to cut over to IPv6, new firmware would have to be pushed down to them. They would have to convince manufacturers to build new firmware for EOL devices. At the end of the day, ISPs would need to replace millions of devices overnight. No ISP will want to pay for that. I can't imagine the e-waste it would cause.

Another issue. Prefixes are assigned by an ISP. Have fun redoing you internal static addresses on you key devices if you change ISP. At least with NAT you can just drop in a replacement ISP.

Edit: One last note. Rural areas tend to get hand me down equipment when Cities get upgraded equipment. That is due to a low ROI on new infrastructure on for a handful of people. If there is an IPv6 cutover, there will be those without internet.

Windows 2000 is a server/enterprise OS, not a consumer one.

 

[greenreaper]

Windows 2000 is a server/enterprise OS, not a consumer one.

That was the intention, but I found it worked way better as a consumer OS for most purposes when I got my hands on a suspicious bootleg CD of it at school. Clearly MS had the same opinion when they brought it through to XP.