Re: Bad IPv6 connectivity or why not to announce more specifics (Was: IPv6 news)

[Bill Owens <owens () nysernet org>]

On Thu, Oct 13, 2005 at 09:44:23PM +0200, Jeroen Massar wrote:
> Kick Abilene to not be so silly and get some real transits. Then again
> Abiline is educational and those networks seem to have very nice (read:
> overcomplex) routing policies...

I don't speak for Abilene or Internet2, but here's what I know. Abilene doesn't buy transit from anyone. Their internal 
routing policy is quite straightforward, given that it is goverened by the Abilene Conditions of Use (their AUP). The 
CoU would normally prohibit connections to commercial ISPs, but it is set aside for IPv6 (and IPv4 multicast). 

As a result, Abilene peers with a number of commercial IPv6 networks at locations where it is convenient to do so 
(PAIX, primarily). Abilene has excellent IPv6 connectivity to the R&E world, typically along the same paths and with 
similar performance to IPv4. They'll never have that good connectivity with the commercial world, and in any case once 
the commercial uptake of IPv6 is high enough, they'll disconnect those peerings and let their members get IPv6 
connectivity through their individual commercial ISPs. I have no idea when that will happen nor how the decision will 
be made, but that's the stated plan.

Bill.

PS - I have no interest whatsoever in debating R&E versus commercial, the role of Abilene, etc. I'm just passing along 
this info. . .