IPv6 Migration Picking Up Momentum: Infonetics Research

The majority of global carriers are planning to deploy IPv6 in 201, according to a survey from Infonetics Research (News - Alert).

The survey also found that service providers are adding caching capabilities and deploying content delivery network (CDN) to reduce traffic loads.

The year 2011 will see the deployment of IPv6 by telecom carriers. Eighty-three percent of the service providers are already deploying IPv6 or planning to deploy the technology by next year, Infonetics Research said in its report called “IPv6 and Caching Strategies; Router and CES (News - Alert) Vendor Leadership.”

The IPv6 growth among carriers will be fueled by several factors. IPv4 addresses will be exhausted in some places in the world by 2012. The anticipated 15 billion machine-to-machine (M2M) devices that will be connected to the Internet by 2015 will require their own IP address. IPv6 migration has become a front-and-center issue for carriers.

“Our survey also confirms that routers and Carrier Ethernet switches will be an important part of solving the video traffic problem, especially for providers with broadband subscribers, as 47 percent of carriers implementing caching plan to move associated routers and switches closer to their subscribers,” said Michael Howard (News - Alert), co-founder of Infonetics Research, in a statement.

The majority of service providers have or plan to add caching capabilities on or near routers and/or Carrier Ethernet switches to address network congestion, much of which is caused by exploding video traffic, according to the survey.

In addition, the percentage of service providers deploying content delivery networks (CDNs) is growing from 38 percent this year to 50 percent by 2013.

The vendors most often cited by carriers as the "top IP edge and Carrier Ethernet switch vendors" are Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, Juniper, and Huawei (News - Alert).

Recently Martin Longo, CTO of real-time identity firm Demandbase, expressed his views on IPv6 migration in a briefing paper, “Transition to IPv6: Why Online Marketers Should Care. If you think it’s just IT’s problem, think again”.  Read the details of the paper here.