November 1, 2000
IPv6 Earns Key Endorsements
From America's Network Magazine
americasnetwork.com
When will the next-gen IP successor emerge from the experimental phase? Just give it some time, say its wireless supporters.
By John Tanner
hy are wireless vendors rallying around next-generation IP? Because IP as we know it isn’t going to be able to support the ’Net of the future as everything from cars to refrigerators connect to the network, and with wireless data and 3G networks taking off sooner than scheduled, IPv4 hasn’t got much time.
The dot-com party is over, and just about everyone in the IT sector knows it. Hardly anyone from any Internet-related business makes a sales pitch to prospective customers or VCs without making a knowing reference to the month of April this year, when high-flying dot-com stocks experienced long overdue corrections as investors finally started to utter the word "profits."
Nowadays, dot-coms are focusing on developing realistic business models designed to bring faster returns on investment. But another problem has been facing the Internet – the pending obsolescence of IP. Naturally, this isn’t exactly a shocking revelation in and of itself. The IT industry has known for years that Internet Protocol version 4 – the protocol whose general ubiquity in the public ’Net, private intranets and extranets worldwide has made the ’Net the commercial powerhouse it is today – was not going to be able to handle the demands placed on the network in the new century, with problems ranging from security and complexity issues to the sheer number of IP addresses that would be required to support a universally connected world.
The expected growth of mobile services is accelerating IPv4’s obsolescence.
The solution – IP version 6, the next-generation Internet protocol – was recommended by the Internet Engineering Task Force six years ago in July 1994, and the recommendation was approved and made a proposed standard by the Internet Engineering Steering Group in November that same year. What’s been happening since then? Plenty – sort of. According to the UK IPv6 Resource Centre at Lancaster University, there are nearly 590 sites in 48 countries worldwide running IPv6. However, most of those sites are experimental in nature and the majority are being run by non-profit academic and scientific organizations.
That’s not to say that commercial telecoms and IT players have been sitting on the sidelines of the next-generation IP game. In South Korea, for example, long-distance carrier and ISP Dacom has been running its own experimental IPv6 project, as have incumbent telco Korea Telecom and cellular operator SK Telecom. In Taiwan, incumbent Chunghwa Telecom has been researching IPv6, while in Malaysia, ISP MIMOS has been experimenting with IPv6 as well. Commercial vendors are involved in similar projects – for example, Fujitsu, NEC and Toshiba in Japan, Ericsson in Sweden, and Nokia’s R&D center in China. All that said, however, IPv6 is still decidedly relegated to the laboratory, with only a handful of IPv6 networks available as a service (and a trial service at that), and as such hasn’t attracted much attention to itself.
But that is starting to change. And, interestingly, it’s been the wireless industry that has been bringing IPv6 back into the limelight. Over the past few months, key wireless players have been announcing support for IPv6, particularly in regards to third-generation cellular technologies. In May this year, Nokia announced its IPv6-based mobile packet core network solution, whose components are now promised to support IPv6 capable from day one of commercial 3G operations.
The same day, Nokia said that the 3rd Generation Partnership Project – the standardization forum for 3G mobile systems, "accepted its proposal to adopt IPv6 as the protocol for future IP multimedia services," a move which ostensibly means that all 3G systems based on W-CDMA and TDMA-EDGE will run IPv6 over their packet data networks. By July, the IPv6 Forum was solidly positioned as one of the 3GPP’s five MRPs (Market Representative Partners), alongside the GSM Association, the Global Mobile Suppliers Association, the UMTS Forum and the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium. Some mobile players aren’t waiting for 3G deployments to worry about IPv6 implementation. In June, the UMTS Forum said it had established a new working group that would work in conjunction with the IPv6 Forum, as well as the International Telecommunication Union, to work out the implementation of IPv6 in 2.5G GSM networks as operators migrate to packet-based GPRS systems in preparation to deploying 3G systems.
It’s only fitting that the mobile industry rally around IPv6 since, in fact, it’s the expected growth of mobile data services that is accelerating IPv4’s obsolescence.
The problem with IPv4
One of IPv4’s primary weaknesses is the number of IP addresses that can be assigned – a number that seemed more than enough in the early days of the Internet when TCP/IP was first developed. But that was before the World Wide Web and the resulting popularity of the ’Net, says British Telecom CTO Chris Earnshaw.
"The number of connected people is increasing at a phenomenal rate. Just look at the number of Internet users growing from 150 million to around 220 million over the past year, but even that is going to pale into insignificance as the number of devices connected spirals to over 1 billion by 2003," Earnshaw said at a UK meeting of the IPv6 Forum last May. "This explosion is set to continue, placing demands on both the number of available IP addresses, and the range and quality of service customers will expect."Adding to this problem is the ongoing popularity of mobile services. As cellular operators begin to deploy packetized data services, cell phones are essentially being transformed into ’Net clients that need IP addresses, just as PCs do.
Combine this with the fact that mobile phones already outnumber fixed line phones in a growing number of countries, and the problem becomes a little more clearly defined in the face of 3G deployments. Asko Räsänen of Nokia agrees. "There will be billions of mobile terminals when the first IP-based 3G networks are deployed. Since those terminals should have IP addresses, the address space for IPv4 is not sufficient."
An overnight synchronized switchover from IPv4 to IPv6 is impractical, if not impossible.
Aggravating this issue, Earnshaw adds, is the notion that mobile phones are just the tip of the iceberg. "A whole new range of IP enabled devices are in the process of being introduced to the market. These range from personal organizers through to games consoles, car navigation systems and even domestic appliances such as fridges and washing machines. In fact we are moving towards a world where any device that would benefit from being linked to the Internet can and will be connected, placing additional demands on the already limited addressing and functionality offered by [IPv4]."
A number of people already own at least two IP-enabled devices – a PC and a mobile phone – and, by some estimates, in 10 or 20 years, people might own dozens of such devices. It’s also worth noting that many of the new IP-enabled devices are expected to be mobile, using either cellular technology or a short-range Bluetooth or HomeRF type of technology.
Räsänen notes that there’s also more to this than just the number of IP addresses needed to support that kind of growth. IPv4’s other shortcomings include unresolved security issues and its questionable ability to support global roaming. "IPv4 also requires the use of NAT between operators and even within large operators, which will be difficult and expensive to manage," says Räsänen.These are also issues that IPv6 has been designed to resolve.
For example, Räsänen says, "IPv6 includes address autoconfiguration, which can help network administrators in configuring networks." IPv6 also features built-in security and mobility, as a global address "facilitates end-to-end security" as well as global roaming. IPv6 also includes packet encryption and source authentication.
Out of the lab
All that said, however, it remains uncertain whether interest in IPv6 from the mobile sector will be enough to bring it out of the test labs and into the commercial sector.
There are a number of deployment problems to deal with, not the least of which is the current ubiquity of its predecessor. Just about every network in existence, as well as most devices connected to them, supports IPv4.
Since an overnight synchronized switchover from IPv4 to IPv6 is impractical (if not impossible), IPv6 will have to be able to support and interwork with legacy IPv4 systems and networks, as well as legacy call control protocols.
This applies equally to 3G cellular deployments – even greenfield 3G operators who don’t have any legacy IPv4 infrastructure to deal with, since they will still have to interconnect their data networks to the Internet.
Even so, Räsänen says new 3G operators should start straight off with IPv6 – a move that he says will make the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 shorter and less costly in terms of money, time and effort. In any case, Räsänen says, "There are solutions to these problems. The trick is in picking the proper solutions for the correct problems." Given that legacy IPv4 will be inevitable for years to come, the most likely solution in the short term will be tunneling IPv6 over existing IPv4 backbones. This isn’t an untested idea by a long shot – most IPv6 experimental networks in operation run on what is known as the "6Bone," a collection of tunneled IPv6 networks running over the public Internet.
A commercially deployed 6Bone could connect IPv6-enabled enterprise intranets and public IP networks (remembering that the Internet by design is actually a collection of interconnected separate networks rather than one giant network), with interworking between both protocols being handled at the edge of each network.
At the same time, new networks based on IPv6 could also tunnel IPv4 traffic to IPv4-enabled destinations. As time goes on, IPv4 networks could be upgraded to support IPv6.
However, a complete transformation to IPv6 is not widely expected to happen for quite sometime, if for no other reason that it will take years just for IPv6-enabled devices to completely replace legacy IPv4-enabled clients. Some industry players don’t expect fully commercial IPv6-compatible infrastructure products for wireline or wireless networks to hit the market until at least 2002, and even with some commercial 3G deployments expected to take place as early as next year, market saturation of 3G is years away, as is the eventual end of 2G mobile services.
The good news is that IPv6 is already coming out of its tunnel. Last month, the Internet Initiative Japan, which has been offering tunneled IPv6 service on its own 6Bone trial network since August 1999, announced the launch of its IPv6 Native Service, which offers direct rather than tunneled IPv6 over dedicated lines at speeds of 64 kbps, 128 kbps and 1.5 Mbps. The service, which is available in Tokyo only but will be offered in other areas eventually, is being offered for free on a trial basis until the end of March 2001, after which IIJ will offer the service commercially. |
