[ILUG] What Irish ISPs support IPv6?

[Gareth Eason]

David Guerin wrote:
[snip]
> Just would be nice if ISPs could just get this out of the way now...
> 
> Sorry for the rant :)
[snip]

	Agreed - though as someone mentioned in a previous mail, it's a vicious
circle. Content suppliers are finding there's no point making content
available over IPv6 since few people access it that way, which means
ISPs have no driver to use IPv6 to access content since there's little
content available over IPv6.

	This is gradually changing, and HEAnet (not the HEA - they are a
completely different body) are in continual discussions with networking
equipment manufacturers to emphasise that IPv6 services MUST be
production quality, and should NOT be chargeable at a premium price over
IPv4. Currently no supplier has real feature parity between IPv4 and
IPv6, though several are working towards this goal. Many devices that
claim they can do IPv6 can, in reality, only perform a limited subset of
IPv6 functions. This makes things difficult to ensure that the end-user
experience is comparable between IPv4 and IPv6.

	I use IPv6 every day. I find it very useful and simple to use. So easy,
in fact, that when debugging network problems I sometimes forget that I
need to test v4 and v6 since routing and firewalling can be different
for the two protocols, so stuff I expect to work doesn't and vice versa.
This is not a problem inherent in IPv6, it's an added complexity due to
dual stacking - the 'temporary' migratory stage :)

	Couldn't agree with you more though - it's in everyone's interests to
see a move towards IPv6, so if you can use it, do! Put as much traffic
on IPv6 as you can, and when IPv6 breaks, tell your ISP. Having a real
value associated with it, customers that really want / need it, is the
only business case to make ISPs roll it out.

	Best regards,
	-->Gar