Telstra turns on IPv6 for enterprise, Gov't and wholesale customers

Stuart Corner
Monday, 05 September 2011 14:07

Business IT - Networking

Telstra has turned on IPv6 for its enterprise, government and wholesale customers, by dual-stacking its Internet backbone with IPv4 and IPv6

This, it says, means that customers can choose to connect using either IPv4 or IPv6, and can migrate to IPv6 at a time of their own choosing. "If customers choose to opt-in to IPv6, they will have access to the global IPv6 internet, including connectivity to multiple providers internationally," Telstra said.

Telstra's director transport and routing, David Robertson, said: "The deployment of IPv6 into the network is an on-going program of work, and we'll make this available for other networks such as DSL and our wireless networks over time.

"By dual stacking IPv4 and IPv6 in our network, customers can opt into IPv6 in their own time, and according to the lifecycle upgrade of their existing equipment. Most customers won't notice the change to IPv6 as we will make this as seamless as possible to our customers."

He added: "In coming years we expect that IPv6 will become the norm and customers will need to opt-out if they wish to use IPv4. However in the early phases of the transition, we'll be working directly with customers to support them as they make this change."

Last month Internode became Australia's first ISP to launch IPv6 as a standard service. It was made available on an opt-in basis to both Internode's ADSL2+ and NBN customers, following a 20-month public trial.