IPv6 Archives

IPv6 and PC Provisioning in a DOCSIS Network

Mia Colabrese2021-08-18T10:01:08-04:00July 31st, 2011|

With IPv6 on the way in a number of MSO (Multi-System Operator) networks, I have received numerous questions lately about how home devices such as routers and PCs attached to DOCSIS cable modems will get their IP addresses. Will cable operators suddenly start issuing IPv6 IP addresses to their customers? Will you as a subscriber need to upgrade your equipment to support IPv6? Or does the cable modem act as a Network Address Translation (NAT) device and hand-out IP address to each device attached to it? These are some very good questions and the answers are addressed in the DOCSIS specification as I will outline.

DOCSIS 3.0 Tutorial – DOCSIS Does IPv6

Mia Colabrese2021-11-24T09:23:28-05:00September 5th, 2010|

Everyone is familiar with Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses. You probably even set them up in your home network, such as 192.168.1.1 IPv4 is described in IETF publication RFC 791 (September 1981), which replaced the previous version RFC 760, dating back to January 1980. So its safe to say that IPv4 has been around for some time and serving us quite well. New in DOCSIS 3.0 has support for IPv6. Why do we need this new version? IPv6 has a vastly larger address space than IPv4. This results from the use of a 128-bit address, whereas IPv4 uses only 32 bits. Believe it or not, major cable operators are running out IP address. This is due to more customers, not just for cable modems, but also for set top boxes and VoIP eMTAs. Further, deployed in cable networks are IP devices such as power supplies with embedded cable modems for monitoring voltage, temperature, current and more. All networks are getting more IP devices requiring more and more IP addresses, so the 2128 addresses allocated in IPv4 are no longer sufficient and we turn to the 3.4×1038 addresses provided in IPv6.