The reason I ask is that last numbers I saw somewhere were thrown off by VPS providers and cellular providers.
How are these situations "throwing off" the numbers?
There seems to an underlying assumption in this statement that if you (e.g.) stream a Youtube video from your cell phone (over IPv6) it is "invalid" (less valid) but if you stream it on your desk/laptop from your (IPv4-only) home or work's ISP it is (more) "valid".
Cellular had no choice but to go IPv6 due to sheer numbers of users.
Of course they have a choice: they could spent millions of dollars getting IPv4 address for their customers, or they give IPv4 shared space [1] to all the devices and spend millions on CG-NAT equipment. No IPv6 needed.
Every IPv6 connection is just as valid as every IPv4 connection.
How are these situations "throwing off" the numbers?
I know many will disagree with me and that is fine, but cell phones will not drive adoption since they have to add plumbing for IPv4 regardless. The phone just has to route to the destination. Adoption will come when businesses are required to have IPv6 to make money, or conversely will lose money when they lack IPv6. I personally would exclude cell phones and VPS providers from numbers to get a real snapshot of meaningful adoption. Home ISP's and commercial businesses are probably more useful to see how far along IPv6 adoption is progressing.
In my opinion and experience when people are given a temporary work around such as ipv6toipv4 gateways, that work around becomes permanent and will stall adoption of the long term solutions.
Of course they have a choice: they could spent millions of dollars getting IPv4 address for their customers
Probably up to a point. They would have eventually hit a wall from port depletion as CG-NAT on gateways only scales so far. It works on home end-points because there are not typically tens of thousands of people at a home. It falls apart quickly when used on a gateway. Anyone that has managed many SNAT pools or a WAN optimizer in large companies has seen this first hand and can share their pain.
If you want to spin up (or expand) as an ISP or a cloud provider there's CapEx associated with getting IPv4 addresses (or if you're a 'regular' business that wants to multi-home with multiple ISPs). I don't see how that can continue indefinitely give the finite 2^32 addresses available.
I don't see how that can continue indefinitely give the finite 2^32 addresses available.
Agreed. I think that's why we don't see a lot of new ISP's starting up and instead there are resellers provisioning on existing networks. The big kids are sitting on a lot of IPv4 space and there is no longer a way to pry it from their hands and now that to your point the IP's are worth more they will kick and scream if someone tries to take the unused space. In the early days ARIN and RIPE would harass people that didn't actively use their space but that stopped and I have no idea why. I remember having to set up Labrea to make several /16's, /17's and /19's pingable so they would leave me alone but that isn't a thing any more.
Comments
How are these situations "throwing off" the numbers?
There seems to an underlying assumption in this statement that if you (e.g.) stream a Youtube video from your cell phone (over IPv6) it is "invalid" (less valid) but if you stream it on your desk/laptop from your (IPv4-only) home or work's ISP it is (more) "valid".
Of course they have a choice: they could spent millions of dollars getting IPv4 address for their customers, or they give IPv4 shared space [1] to all the devices and spend millions on CG-NAT equipment. No IPv6 needed.
Every IPv6 connection is just as valid as every IPv4 connection.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_shared_address_space
How are these situations "throwing off" the numbers?
I know many will disagree with me and that is fine, but cell phones will not drive adoption since they have to add plumbing for IPv4 regardless. The phone just has to route to the destination. Adoption will come when businesses are required to have IPv6 to make money, or conversely will lose money when they lack IPv6. I personally would exclude cell phones and VPS providers from numbers to get a real snapshot of meaningful adoption. Home ISP's and commercial businesses are probably more useful to see how far along IPv6 adoption is progressing.
In my opinion and experience when people are given a temporary work around such as ipv6toipv4 gateways, that work around becomes permanent and will stall adoption of the long term solutions.
Of course they have a choice: they could spent millions of dollars getting IPv4 address for their customers
Probably up to a point. They would have eventually hit a wall from port depletion as CG-NAT on gateways only scales so far. It works on home end-points because there are not typically tens of thousands of people at a home. It falls apart quickly when used on a gateway. Anyone that has managed many SNAT pools or a WAN optimizer in large companies has seen this first hand and can share their pain.
Well IPv4 is currently going for US$ 40/IP:
* https://auctions.ipv4.global/prior-sales
* https://ipv4marketgroup.com/ipv4-pricing/
It actually peaked at over $50 for a while:
* https://circleid.com/posts/20230207-the-ipv4-price-inversion
If you want to spin up (or expand) as an ISP or a cloud provider there's CapEx associated with getting IPv4 addresses (or if you're a 'regular' business that wants to multi-home with multiple ISPs). I don't see how that can continue indefinitely give the finite 2^32 addresses available.
I don't see how that can continue indefinitely give the finite 2^32 addresses available.
Agreed. I think that's why we don't see a lot of new ISP's starting up and instead there are resellers provisioning on existing networks. The big kids are sitting on a lot of IPv4 space and there is no longer a way to pry it from their hands and now that to your point the IP's are worth more they will kick and scream if someone tries to take the unused space. In the early days ARIN and RIPE would harass people that didn't actively use their space but that stopped and I have no idea why. I remember having to set up Labrea to make several /16's, /17's and /19's pingable so they would leave me alone but that isn't a thing any more.