The majority of the most popular
Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) in Latin America and the Caribbean work with
IPv6 and many support at least one transition mechanism.
The research was led by Alejandro
D´Egidio and assessed the deployment of CPEs with IPv6 support in LAC, as well
as the most popular transition mechanisms supported by CPEs.
D’Egidio stressed that the transition
to IPv6 should be improved by providing more training to technical staff and
decision makers. “In many cases, they don’t begin working on IPv6 transition
due to a lack of information, as they don’t know where to start or don’t
realize that they may already have everything they need to do so,” he noted.
What were the main results of the
research?
Research results depended largely on
the collaboration of ISPs and CPE vendors. Only some of the ISPs in the region participated,
most of which are already offering IPv6. Out of all the vendors we surveyed,
ZTE, Sagemcom and Technicolor collaborated with the study.
Based on the information provided by
both groups regarding the CPE models deployed in each access technology, we
observed that the majority supports IPv6 and several support at least one
transition mechanism.
This leads us to believe that a large
number of CPEs already in use are currently ready to support IPv6 deployments
and that it’s simply a matter of ISPs being able to adapt the rest of their
infrastructure to start offering the v6 Internet protocol.
How many IPv6-ready CPE devices are
deployed in the region? Which transition mechanisms do the most popular CPEs
support?
A large number of CPE devices with
IPv6 support is already deployed in the region. Most of these CPEs support
DS-Lite as a transition mechanism.
Generally speaking, ISPs are
providing IPv6 services using the dual-stack model, offering IPv4 (public or
private CGN as the case may be) as well as IPv6.
This represents a great opportunity
to work on a transition mechanism such as DS-Lite which is supported by most CPE
devices with IPv6 support.
What are the leading transition
mechanisms in the region and what is their market penetration?
DS-Lite is the leading transition
mechanism under the region’s leading IPv4-as-a-Service model. A total of 79.55%
of the CPE models reported by ISPs support DS-Lite.
On the other hand, according to the
information provided by the vendors, this transition mechanism is available in
64.86% of the CPEs deployed in the region.
As already mentioned, the tendency
among ISPs was that only those who are already offering IPv6 responded, while
vendors provided information on the CPE they are using regardless of whether
the ISP provides IPv6. In this sense, we decided it was best to base our
conclusions on the information provided by the vendors, which is also very
positive as it shows that almost 65% of the CPE devices they have deployed
support DS-Lite.
What do you recommend doing to
improve the transition to IPv6? What should be the most immediate actions?
First, technical personnel and
decision makers should receive training on the importance of getting started
with the transition.
In many cases, they don’t begin
working on this transition due to a lack of information, as they don’t know
where to start or don’t realize that they may already have everything they need
to do so.
As for immediate actions, begin by taking
advantage of the training courses LACNIC offers each year, join the community
mailing lists and ask all the questions you need.
All of this will serve as the
groundwork to begin testing and starting the transition process.
The more we become involved in this
transition, the better and more transparent the service we will be able to
offer our clients.
