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How will IPv6 impact everyday users? (World IPv6 Day)

As I understand when we have finally made the switch to IPv6 not only will NAT be unnecessary but it is incompatible with IPv6?

Will that mean that ISPs will have to serve multiple IP addresses per customer? Will they provide a range of addresses for each customer or as each device connects will they get an IP address that isn't necessarily near that of the other devices in their house?

But overall will this be bad for the Internet users? as surely it will allow ISPs to see exactly how many devices are being used, and so allow them to charge for the use of additional IP addresses? And then if that happens, what happens when you try to connect an extra device to your network? Will it simply not get an IP address?
In my home we have about 15-20 devices connected at once, but for places where there are hundreds of devices, it seems like the perfect opportunity for ISPs to charge more?

I think I may have it completely wrong, so is there somewhere where there is an explanation of who things will work when IPv6 becomes the norm?

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  • Will this and that happen? – Sorry, I don't think anybody knows for sure how exactly the IPv4 → IPv6 progression will happen, but the real question is: Why do you want to know? Is there an actual problem to solve? Can't we just wait and see until this becomes more of a practical issue?
    – slhck
    Mar 31, 2012 at 21:49
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    This is not about the progression, but when it's finished progressing, which should be well documented. Since when is waiting for a problem to occur rather trying to get ahead of it, a better option?
    – Jonathan.
    Mar 31, 2012 at 22:00
  • Of course, but then you'll need to define "bad" too. Will ISPs charge for something? Who knows? What specifically are you trying to avoid or get ahead of?
    – slhck
    Mar 31, 2012 at 22:04
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    Bad is a word in the dictionary, what is there to define? Will IPv6 actually mean the removal of NAT? How will IP addresses be assigned?
    – Jonathan.
    Mar 31, 2012 at 22:16
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    The answer provided here doesnt overlap with the answers in the question that is given as the reason to close. But at least someone answered the question before you trigger happy people got to it. Once again on Superuser, closing the question has done absolutely nothing...
    – Jonathan.
    Apr 1, 2012 at 13:10

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Removal of NAT will be good for end users, not bad for end users, because NAT breaks the end-to-end principle and inhibits applications from doing a bunch of things, or else forces them into difficult-to-implement and functionality-reducing workarounds.

In IPv6, ISPs are supposed to assign at least a /56 block of addresses to each customer (enough for 256 subnets of size /64 each), and preferably a /48 (enough for 65536 subnets).

It is possible that some ISPs will not respect this and assign only a /64. That's still enough for one subnet which can contain a practically unlimited number of hosts, but it is a big hindrance to users who have a more complex internal network topology or who want to share an Internet connection (think cell phone tethering, which is often done today) without needing to bridge everything together into one large subnet. Hopefully this won't happen too much and can be corrected when it happens.

However, since NAT does in fact already exist for IPv6, the question is moot.

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  • Thank you for just answering the question, and not messing about :)
    – Jonathan.
    Apr 1, 2012 at 13:06

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