CircleID

Comcast today announced plans to conduct production-network trials of IPv6 technology this year. The trials are aimed at helping identify and solve any areas of difficulty involved in the transition to IPv6, and to determine what approach will be the easiest and most seamless for its customers, says Jason Livingood, Comcast's Internet System Engineer.

Comcast will test three IPv6 transition mechanisms:

• Phase one will use 6rd, a technique developed by French ISP Free that allows for rapid deployment of IPv6 by tunneling IPv6 traffic over IPv4 addresses.

• Phase two will support native IPv4 and IPv6 traffic running side-by-side in an approach dubbed dual-stack. This is Comcast's preferred method of transition to IPv6 and may require the carrier to reclaim unused blocks of IPv4 addresses.

• Phase three will test a technique developed by Comcast called Dual-Stack Lite, which uses network-address translation to share one IPv4 address among many customers.

Related Links:
IPv6 Information Center
Preparing for the IPv6 Transition Comcast Blog
Comcast Launches IPv6 Trials Network World

Related topics: Access Providers, IPv6, Telecom