Of those in the process, 53% indicate they expect readiness within a year, 35% predict one to three years, while 12% feel the process will take longer. However, the report notes that these estimates might be overly confident since 34% of last year's respondents thought they would complete adoption within 12 months. Yet now, a year later, the percentage of those who have completed adoption has not risen significantly.
"I think the problem is that the industry has not really stated what is to be gained by moving to IPv6," said Stephane Bourque, president and CEO of Incognito. "If the giants were to say (again), 'Look, if you go to IPv6, you would gain x,' you would start seeing customers asking for it. Now there is no real demand outside of the providers that are running out of addresses."
That said, Bourque added that the demand could be coming. Internationally, companies in countries like China and Korea can only be connected to using IPv6. If a business here cannot do IPv6, it is not able to connect to a supplier or reseller overseas. Even still, Bourque expects IPv4 to be around for a long time, at least 10-15 years.
"There is too much out there still doing IPv4," he said. "We all remember what happened when (the year) 2000 came around. People were afraid. They didn't know what software was left out there that was not able to (transition). The same thing will happen (10-15 years from now). We will realize which devices can't do IPv6."
The advantages to IPv6 that Bourque was referring to include an unlimited number of addresses, stricter security and the opportunity to re-architect the network.
With the Internet of Things, every connected device in the home will need an address. "With IPv6, you will never exhaust home addresses. If every switch, toaster, painting, light, (is connected), you will need so many addresses, but will never run out," Bourque said.
As for security, with IPv6 there is an awareness of which device in the home is trying to get to the Internet and only allows that traffic to go by. The end-to-end encryption and integrity checking mean that man-in-the middle attacks become more difficult. In other words, if someone is trying to connect to Yahoo, that is what they will get, not an impersonator.
With IPv4, networks evolved to the size they are today. As a result, lots of addresses coming from the Internet need special routing instructions in the network to work. This has led to complicated routing tables where a path from one device to the next might be complicated. When implementing IPv6, operators have the opportunity to reorganize, so to speak.
"A common mistake would be to map all IPv4 addresses to their own IPv6 address," Bourque said. "There is the chance to start from scratch and design the way you want, not the way you inherited or the way (the network) grew up to be .... You know what the network looks like, and therefore you can provide better addressing."
Ultimately, what would really drive the elimination of IPv4 would be a killer app - a reason why everyone has to be on IPv6. "It could be a business driver, a new way to communicate, a new social media, a new security (app) or any of the above. I don't know yet. That is what is exciting about IPv6. It gives developers more tools to build more secure and more advanced apps," Bourque said.