As the countdown of days remaining until the pool of available blocks of IP addresses approaches zero, AT&T highlighted steps it is taking to prepare customer, as well as its own network, for the transition to IPv6.
AT&T said it has completed a full assessment of its products and infrastructure, identified necessary steps, and developed platform and product specific strategies, AT&T is now employing a variety of tactics — ranging from aggressively conserving/reclaiming addresses to full-scale upgrading of infrastructure— to minimize risk and customer impacts. Steps taken since 2006 include:
- Transitioned its own Enterprise, Consumer and Mobility services to IPv6.
- Created a separate corporate program office to manage the transition in alignment with global IPv4 address exhaust scenarios.
- Enabled IPv6 for use with AT&T Virtual Private Network Service (AT&T VPN) and AT&T Managed Internet Services (MIS) for sites in the US today. IPv6 is also enabled for use with AT&T VPN and MIS in additional countries today and is projected to be available to the majority of AT&T's global network footprint in 2011. In addition, IPv6 will be enabled on many of AT&T's "IP add-on" services such as remote access, hosting, managed premises equipment, and VoIP through the course of 2011.
For customers, AT&T is actively consulting with companies in response to the exploding growth in mobile applications, machine-to-machine computing, and peer-to-peer applications. AT&T is encouraging businesses to perform a readiness assessment and begin establishing an IPv6 presence.
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