TABLE OF CONTENTS In Chapter 8 we provided an implicit view to the support of IPv6 over satellite links. This chapter gives a more detailed survey of press-time industry activities aimed at advancing the understanding of how to optimally and effectively support IPv6 over satellite systems. There is keen interest in this topic, especially outside the United States. Some specific implementation approaches and suggestions are included in Section 9.4. Appendix A following this chapter provides some additional information.
While this information has a certain time horizon, it is included here to give a sense to the reader of the activities that have taken place in the past few years (2003 2009) in the area of IPv6 over satellite, and to give a sense of the foundation that this work lays for more concrete activities expected in the next few years (2010 2015.)
As of press time vendors of satellite equipment appeared in general to continue to focus on topics such as new modulation techniques that can realize more sellable bandwidth out of transponders' capacity. Value-added features such as IP support in satellite environments (e.g., IP-based VSATs, IPTV over satellite, etc.) have seen implementation in the past few years, but they are still somewhat secondary and always seem to be a step behind the terrestrial world, according to some observers [CAM200801].
As we saw earlier in the book, IPv6 offers the potential of achieving the scalability, reachability, end-to-end interworking, quality of service (QoS), and commercial-grade robustness for data as well...
