We knew this was coming, and now the news about the depletion of IPv4 addresses is starting to escalate. With about a year’s supply on hand, things aren’t critical but I expect the media to treat this like Y2K all over again. The difference here is that we know the scope of the problem and how to fix it.
Once the address pool of IPv4 addresses is exhausted, there’s nowhere to get more. Except, of course, by using a new addressing scheme called IPv6, which provides us an exponentially larger pool by making the addresses longer (kind of analogous to what area codes did for the phone system). The problem with IPv6 is that most legacy devices in your home network don’t support it, and network operators must invest heavy dollars to migrate their infrastructure.
ClearAccess has been actively working on making our software IPv6 ready, which in general terms means converting the Powered by ClearAccess features to be IPv6 capable, and making some minor updates to ClearVision so it can handle the longer address space. It requires a lot of testing to ensure that both IPv4 and IPv6 modes can work concurrently.
We expect our customers to start testing IPv6 in labs by the middle of this year, assuming their network elements are ready by then. Service providers have been looking at IPv6 for years as a necessary migration, and it looks like 2011 is the year that it finally becomes a reality.
Last modified on Wednesday, 25 January 2012 00:07
Steve Gorretta
Director of Product Management