Sonic.net CEO Blog

Now that the last few blocks of IPv4 space are being handed out (http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20016284-264.html), does Sonic have a plan to offer native IPv6 support to its customers?

The current unsupported IPv6 offering is lame (e.g. a search in the Support section doesn’t find it, and you can’t just plug in the DSL router and start surfing using IPv6; it takes a separate router that the user has manually configured). See:

http://sonic.net/features/ipv6/

“This is a completely unsupported service. Sonic.net technical support are unable to assist in configuration or troubleshooting of IPv6 tunnels.”

I’m glad that IPv6 is on your radar and in some of your infrastructure. But don’t be mistaken that some day “the Internet will move to IPv6″. IPv4 and IPv6 will coexist for a decade or longer. Ban Ki-moon is not going to get on the boob tube and announce a cutoff day when everyone has to switch. Address exhaustion won’t force end users to switch IPv6 on for a few years. But Sonic is an infrastructure provider. If you don’t enable it, your customers can’t either, which means they’ll have to do it late, in a panic, without a plan.

Are you routing IPv6 natively through your core routers yet? That’s the first big step, which enables dozens of smaller steps elsewhere in the network.

“We will of course support IPv6 when it is necessary to do so.” — when will that be? I find it necessary now (I write and debug software that needs to work under IPv6), which is why I have an IPv6 tunnel to a friend at MIT. But manual tunnels don’t scale. You’ll need early customers in the already-working parts of your network to help you debug your IPv6 support. I and your other IPv6-savvy customers are your resources. Use us, don’t shoot the messenger.

Is Sonic requiring IPv6 support in every bit of new gear that you purchase? Only if you do so now will you discover which of your current vendors will cause you trouble when you try to roll out real IPv6 support.

The dumb way to get serious about IPv6 is to only do so on the day that ARIN refuses to allocate you an IPv4 address block (because they don’t have any more). Tens of thousands of companies will panic on that day. Sonic should be cool and collected on that day, having switched two years earlier – i.e. now. And when Sonic customers panic and call you, you’ll be able to tell them “No problem. We have a thousand IPv6 customers already. It works great!”

You might want to look up Gilmore, employee #3 at Sun IIRC, and Nagel, author of Congestion Control in IP/TCP Internetworks (RFC 896), just to see who’s providing such wise advice.

I’m glad to see Fusion is finally available in my area, and I’ve just submitted my upgrade order.

So in business terms I get it – most of your customers don’t care about IP addressing. On the other hand, the changeover is inevitable, drawing closer every month, and introducing a service that doubles your speed is a powerful incentive for folks to endure whatever disruption there might be. (And the ordering process implied that everybody has to get readdressed anyway…)

Will you at least consider offering native IPv6 as an option for early adopters when they upgrade?

We have been eagerly waiting for Fusion service to become available. Unfortunatly, we are moving from an area where it is available to an area it is not. Any hope of getting Fusion service in the Bennet Valley area soon? We would love to make a clean break from AT&T once and for all.

Thank you Sonic.net for the FUSION service. Ordered 10-12-2010, up & running 10-20-2010. I’ve been a customer of Sonic.net since 2002, I’m 11,000′ + from the CO location and was getting 1.2 down and 300 up, and paying 4 separate bills for dsl, 2 phones/fax lines & long distance. Now, because of your new FUSION service, I’ll be paying one bill (to Sonic.net)for the 2-line service, I’m getting up to 3.2 down and 1.4 up (still tweaking with Sonic.net support) and I’ll be saving roughly 9% off my new monthly billing versus old. So I just want to say Thank You for this new service!!

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9207498/Address_allocation_kicks_off_IPv4_endgame

The last 5 blocks of IPv4 address space are now being given to the 5 continental registries. There will be no more IPv4 addresses after these.

Dane, is it time yet to *allow* your customers to use IPv6? Currently you don’t even offer it as a supported option.