[LINK] Fwd: Expert Panel: The Seven Stages of IPv6 Adoption

[Paul Brooks]

Rick Welykochy wrote:
> Microsoft Windows was catapulted into TCP/IP after being one of the latter
> stalwarts tring something else. With the advent of TCP/IP on Winders, the
> commercialisation of the 'Net took off. Perhaps a coincidence.
>   
Not a coincidence, but no credit for Microsoft either. TCP/IP for early 
PCs back to Windows 3.1 and Windows-for-Workgroups was provided by 
third-party TCP/IP stacks that loaded with MS-DOS. There was a thriving 
industry of third-party addon TCP/IP protocol stacks and applications 
until Microsoft finally woke up and smelt the roses that their own Lan 
Manager protocol wasn't going to dominate, and killed off the market by 
including TCP/IP natively in Windows 95.

> If Microsoft adopted IPv6 as an experiment, then a beta, then a duplicate
> service alongside IPv4 and finally as solely IPv6, you can bet the rest of
> world would follow.
>   
They've already done that. Windows XP includes IPv6, but it is disabled 
by default - easy to enable manually. Windows Vista includes IPv6, and 
it is enabled by default in parallel with IPv4.

The issue these days is not the end-user's OS, it is the complete lack 
of broadband modems/routers that support IPv6, and consequently no 
demand from users for ISPs to provide native IPv6. Only one ISP that I 
know of has a consumer IPv6 product, and it is provided through 
tunnelling software on the PC that runs through the IPv4-only broadband 
link.

> Someone will have to make the first move. Perhaps a fridge manufacturer ;)
>   
Waiting on Dlink, Netgear, Netcomm, Linksys etc etc etc...


P.