Telecom Ramblings

Limelight Networks (LLNW: chart, news) today unveiled IPv6 support for its CDN. Moves toward IPv6 have been gaining momentum lately, especially for those providing substantial services in markets outside North America.  NTT Communications (NTT: chart, news) and Global Crossing (GLBC: chart, news) are particularly fierce about it.  Given that Global Crossing is reselling Limelight and also supplying it with underlying transport and transit, it is likely that they are involved in the IPv6 angle as well.

Now, the title of Limelight’s press release claims the industry’s first IPv6 CDN, but that seems to be playing a bit fast and loose with reality.  Certainly it would come as a surprise to BitGravity and its partner Tata who have been talking up their own IPv6 support for nearly a year.  And I somehow doubt that NTT America’s CDN services are limited to IPv4 as well.  Ah well, it pays never to believe any PR that claims the ‘first’ or ‘top’ or ‘largest’ anything.  It seems especially true when it comes to the internet space, where statistics don’t actually lie because nobody agrees on even the most basic metrics for comparison anyway.

Any CDN like Limelight that has global ambitions is going to need an answer to the coming exhaustion of IPv4 address space.  No doubt we will hear of similar upgrades from others as the year continues, but I don’t sense anyone is in a huge hurry.