With the Internet of Things (IoT) gaining traction, as evidenced by the technologies displayed at CES 2016, IPv6 traffic will continue rising. IPv4 addresses have been depleted, so the explosion of IoT devices (Gartner estimates 6.4 billion things will be online worldwide this year) is dependent on the IPv6 address inventory.
Service providers are planning on going to native IPv6 vs. continuing to use a carrier grade network address translation (NAT). But just because they deploy IPv6 to a house it doesn't automatically mean the associated devices inside will work.
To that end, the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) has approved four customer edge routers for its IPv6 Ready CE Router Logo. Devices from Broadcom, Netgear and ZTE passed the necessary IPv6 test cases indicating to service providers that IPv6 will work on these models.
"This program tests all devices. We had a DOCSIS device, Ethernet, and DSL device ... if you deployed v6 to someone's house, it will work so the home user isn't impacted," said Timothy Winters, senior manager, UNH-IOL. "The home user can buy these from Best Buy or Walmart, and this will work."
There are two components to the testing. The first is interoperability among all the components, and the second is conformance with standards.