Migrating to IPv6 - The Role of Basic Coordination

The need for a larger Internet address space was acknowledged early on, and a solution (IPv6) standardized years ago. Its adoption has, however, been anything but easy and still faces significant challenges. The situation begs the questions of why has it been so difficult? and what could have been (or still be) done to facilitate this migration? There has been significant recent interest in those questions, and the paper builds on a line of work based on technology adoption models to explore them. The results confirm the impact of several known factors, but also provide new insight. In particular, they highlight the destabilizing effect of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offering competing alternatives (to IPv6), and demonstrate the benefits of even minimum coordination among them in offering IPv6 as an option. The findings afford additional visibility into what affects technology transition in large systems with complex dependencies such as the Internet

On the Adoption Dynamics of Internet Technologies: Models and Case Studies

Today, more than any time in history, our life-styles depend on networked systems, ranging from power grids to the Internet and social networks. From shopping online to attending a conference via P2P technologies, the Internet is changing the way we perform certain tasks, which incentivizes more users to join the network. This user population growth as well as higher demand for a better access to the Internet call for its expansion and development, and therefore, fuel the emergence of new Internet technologies. However, many such technologies fail to get adopted by their target user population due to various technical or socio-economical problems. Understanding these (adoption) problems and the factors that play a significant role in them, not only gives researchers a better insight into the dynamics of Internet technology adoption, but also provides them with enhanced guidelines for designing new Internet technologies. The primary motivation of this thesis is, therefore, to provide researchers and network technology developers with an insight into what factors are responsible for, or at least correlated with, the success or failure of an Internet technology. We start by delving deeply into (arguably) the salient adoption problem the Internet has faced in its 40+ years of existence, and continues to face for at least a foreseeable future, namely, IPv6 adoption. The study is composed of an extensive measurement component, in addition to models that capture the roles of different Internet stakeholders in the adoption of IPv6. Then, we extend it to a broad set of Internet protocols, and investigate the factors that affect their adoptions. The findings show performance as the primary factor that not only affected the adoption of IPv6, but also plays a role in the adoption of any other network data plane protocol. Moreover, they show how backward compatibility as well as other factors can affect the adoption of various protocols. The study provides a number of models and methodologies that can be extended to other similar problems in various research areas, such as network technology adoption and design, two-sided markets, and network economics

Internet Technology in 2010: The Issue of IPv6 Adoption in the U.S.A.

Computer industry literature suggests that IPv4 Internet addresses are likely to have been depleted by the year 2010, and at least Asia and Europe will be using the new IPv6 Internet addresses. Literature also suggests that the U.S.A. is lagging behind Asia and Europe with the implementation of IPv6. Empirical data supporting the fact that the U.S.A. is lagging behind is not available in the literature. This paper presents the issues regarding IPv6, reasons why Asia and Europe are implementing IPv6, and why the U.S.A. is lagging behind. Empirical data is presented to support the literature’s suggestion that the U.S.A. is lagging behind. The consequences of this inactivity regarding the implementation of IPv6 by the U.S.A. are discussed

Global Diffusion of the Internet V - The Changing Dynamic of the Internet: Early and Late Adopters of the IPv6 Standard

The introduction of a new network level protocol called Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) represents a significant step forward in the development of the Internet. While IPv6 offers a number of advantages over the current standard (IPv4), its adoption has been inconsistent, often varying by geographic and political region. Through an investigation of early and late adopters of IPv6, this paper seeks to understand the factors that influence the time of adoption decision. The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, we interviewed Internet thought leaders. Based on previous literature about the characteristics of early and late adopters, and characteristics specific to IPv6 derived from the interviews, we developed a set of initial notions describing the conditions that are likely to encourage early adoption of IPv6. In stage two we tested those conditions through interviews with eight ISPs in six countries. We found that relative advantage, uncertainty and risk, crisis, and power relationships influence an organization\u27s time of adoption while organizational age does not impact the time of adoption. In addition, we found that sponsorship and availability of information indirectly affect time of adoption by mitigating the perceived risk of early adoption

Internet protocol resources : a tool for positioning African higher education institutions as knowledge, innovation and development centres

In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), qualified human capital remains scarce compared to the continent’s development needs, hindering growth. Cost effective ICT mechanisms that enable the free flow of information and knowledge networks within and among universities is key to higher education institutions being able to play their role in African societies. Adoption of e-learning as a way to address the ever-growing demand for tertiary education within the sub region would be possible as a result of harnessing ICTs for overall socio-economic development. Networking activities based on Internet protocols and more so on IPv6 are transforming the digital economy and impacting stakeholders’ relationships

HDMM: deploying client and network-based distributed mobility management

Mobile operators are now facing the challenges posed by a huge data demand from users, mainly due to the introduction of modern portable devices and the success of mobile applications. Moreover, users are now capable to connect from different access networks and establish several active sessions simultaneously, while being mobile. This triggered the introduction of a new paradigm: the distributed mobility management (DMM) which aims at flattening the network and distributing the entities in charge of managing users' mobility. In this article, we review existing DMM proposals and describe a hybrid solution which benefits from combining a network-based and a client-based approach. We analyze the signaling cost and the handover latency of our proposal, comparing them with their centralized alternatives. We also include validation and performance results from experiments conducted with a Linux-based prototype, which show that achievable enhancements depend on the underlying network topology. We argue that the proposed hybrid DMM solution provides additional flexibility to the mobile network operators, which can decide when and how to combine these two approaches.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-ICT-2009-5) under Grant agreement n. 258053 (MEDIEVAL project) and from the Spanish Government, MICINN, under research grant TIN2010-20136-C0

Embedded Security Improvements to IPv6

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The Centripetal Network: How the Internet Holds Itself Together, and the Forces Tearing It Apart

Two forces are in tension as the Internet evolves. One pushes toward interconnected common platforms; the other pulls toward fragmentation and proprietary alternatives. Their interplay drives many of the contentious issues in cyberlaw, intellectual property, and telecommunications policy, including the fight over network neutrality for broadband providers, debates over global Internet governance, and battles over copyright online. These are more than just conflicts between incumbents and innovators, or between openness and deregulation. Their roots lie in the fundamental dynamics of interconnected networks. Fortunately, there is an interdisciplinary literature on network properties, albeit one virtually unknown to legal scholars. The emerging field of network formation theory explains the pressures threatening to pull the Internet apart, and suggests responses. The Internet as we know it is surprisingly fragile. To continue the extraordinary outpouring of creativity and innovation that the Internet fosters, policy-makers must protect its composite structure against both fragmentation and excessive concentration of power. This paper, the first to apply network formation models to Internet law, shows how the Internet pulls itself together as a coherent whole. This very process, however, creates and magnifies imbalances that encourage balkanization. By understanding how networks behave, governments and other legal decision-makers can avoid unintended consequences and target their actions appropriately. A network-theoretic perspective holds great promise to inform the law and policy of the information economy