IPv6 and the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses can usually garner a few 'end of the world' type column inches in the press, but some companies have embraced IPv6 and are very much pushing the move forward so that we do not end up in a situation where IPv4 addresses are traded as a limited resource.
Andrews and Arnold has just celebrated its tenth anniversary for its first IPv6 RIPE allocation (20th August 2002 to be precise). The fact IPv6 has been around for that long may surprise many people, most likely because none of the big broadband providers have embraced IPv6, it is perfectly feasible to give a broadband account both an IPv6 and IPv4 address, leaving the decision down to the consumer of business.
One stumbling block has been the affordability of routers supporting IPv6, the Billion 7800N which can be purchased for £120 is changing that, and other devices like the more expensive AVM Fritzbox 7390 also support it. Even Asus are in the game now with their Ethernet router, the Asus RT-N66U supporting IPv6. One concern some have about IPv6 and routers, is that computers will usually receive a public IPv6 address, but most routers do successfully firewall local network devices. Reviews of the AVM and Asus will join our review section over the next few weeks.
We of course do have an IPv6 speedtest, and there are other sites only available to IPv6 users such as www.loopsofzen.co.uk. Not being able to visit that site may be of little consequence, but all it will take is for one major application or games console to deploy an exciting reason for IPv6 and the race will be on. For those that have battled with NAT and UPnP the move to IPv6 will be very welcome.
Yes looking forward to a day when I can dump NAT (at home). Many may have to learn about setting IPv6 firewall rules though hopefully home routers will be supplied with the "deny in, allow out" default rules we are used to taking for granted.
Maybe a small explosion of people running IPv6 WWW amd FTP sites on their mobiles or Rasberry PIs just "because they can" if just an allow rule is easier than a combo of reserved private IP and port forwarding.