Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...
Dan York
Author's posts
Jan 18
cPanel To Add IPv6 Support in 2013
Good news for the many people out there using cPanel to configure their hosted website… IPv6 support is coming this year. In a post titled “IPv6 Implementation Update” they state:
Much like Y2K, this issue requires a proactive solution rather than a reactive response. That is why cPanel has been working diligently on research and analysis to incorporate IPv6 support into our products. In 2013 we will begin to deliver features that support IPv6.
As some of you may already know, IPv6 is much more than just a change in the addressing scheme. However, given the urgency of supporting IPv6 addressing, we will first focus on allowing you to manage manually assigned IPv6 addresses at least as well as you can currently manage IPv4 addresses in cPanel & WHM. We also look forward to supporting IPv6 addresses on NSD, MyDNS and BIND (for DNS functionality), Apache (for website functionality), cPanel & WHM and its related services, and the various mail services we support. Additional services will be made IPv6-capable as deemed fit. The level of support cPanel will provide for IPv6 will provide functionality needed for serving web content.
Given the large usage of cPanel among web hosting providers it is great to see that this support for IPv6 will be added to the software. The cPanel article encouraged people to join in the IPv6-related discussion happening in the Feature Requests area of their website. It’s interesting to read there already the comments of people who have not implemented cPanel (or have chosen different hosting providers who don’t use cPanel) because of its lack of IPv6 support.
Jan 17
Facebook Rolls Out Free Voice Calls In The US On iOS – A Quick Walkthrough And A Big, Huge Caveat
Voice calling through Facebook has the potential to be hugely disruptive... rather than calling on your phone over your regular phone connection - or even rather than using Skype, you can just call from directly within Facebook. This is the kind of "Over-The-Top (OTT)" app that gives telco operators a fit... goodbye, telco voice minutes!
Plus, it's using some HD voice codec so the sound quality is outstanding.
And since the folks at Facebook want you to live your life inside of their very pretty walls, this just provides yet one more reason for you to stay within those walls.
BUT... there's a big huge caveat that I'll get to in a moment.
A Quick Walkthrough
First, though, let's look at how it works. When you go into the Messenger app and open a chat with a friend (in this case, Jim Courtney), all you have to do is click the "i" button in the upper right:
After you do that you will get a window that I showed at the beginning of an article where you have a "Free Call" button.
When you press that, you begin a call experience very similar to any other call on your iPhone. First you are connecting to the other person and then you are in the actual call:
There is apparently the standard accept and decline buttons. (I neglected to have Jim call me back to get a screenshot.) While you are in the call you have a button to hang up, a speakerphone button and a microphone mute button. The last button is very nice in that it lets you remain in the call while using other features of your iPhone. In these two screenshots you can see that I could access our Messenger chat and also go back to my main iPhone screen to launch other applications. I can always tap the bar at the top to return to Messenger and the controls to our voice conversation:
The voice quality during the conversation was outstanding. It was crystal clear and rich enough that we knew it was some kind of HD voice codec being used.
All in all it was an excellent experience.
The Big, Huge Caveat
So what's the problem? Well... the reality is that right now trying to find someone to call is a struggle!
Going down through my contacts in the Messenger app was an exercise in futility. Person after person after person had the "Free Call" button greyed out:
Here's the fundamental problem:
You must be running the MESSENGER app on your iPhone!
It doesn't matter if you are running the Facebook application on your iPhone... you must be running Messenger.
And bizarrely there is no linkage between the two applications. If I am over in the Facebook application and go into a chat with Jim Courtney, notice that I have only the ability to "View Timeline":
And of course you must have an iPhone or iPad. If you have an Android device or some other device you are out of luck right now.
So the only people you can use this with are other people running Messenger on iOS.
Presumably Facebook is assuming people will just keep Messenger running... but I know that I, for one, try to limit the number of apps I keep running on my iPhone for battery life reasons.
More fundamentally, I never have used the Messenger app for chatting with other friends in Facebook. The Facebook app already provides the ability to chat... so why would I use the Messenger app? (And I know Facebook focuses on the speed that you can get to sending messages... but that's not critical for me.)
Potential For Disruption?
Now if Facebook gets their act together and makes this more intuitive and ubiquitous, the potential is there for more serious disruption. If it can be integrated into the main Facebook app... and can work for Android as well as iOS... and can work for people outside the US and Canada... THEN we might see more people shifting voice calls over into Facebook's voice service.
The potential is certainly huge, given Facebook's massive size.
Until then... it's an interesting option to have available... but I just don't see many people using it.
What About The Technology Behind It?
My other natural question was to wonder what they are using for the technology behind their voice service. As The Verge pointed out, Facebook and Skype have had a partnership to deliver video calling within Facebook's website. Could this be another component of that partnership? Is it a partnership with another VoIP provider? Is it something homegrown?
For now, I haven't seen any details that help explain that, but I'll certainly be watching to see what we can learn.
UPDATE: A tweet from Aswath Rao pointed me to a TechCrunch article from earlier this month when Facebook rolled out free voice calling in Canada that indicates that the technology is NOT from Skype. Separately I asked a Skype representative if Skype was involved in today's rollout and received the simple answer of "no".
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Jan 16
Playing Google’s Zamboni Game/Doodle… Over IPv6!
Okay, maybe it’s a small thing, but I have to admit that when I wound up on Google’s home page today to try out their “Zamboni doodle” celebrating the 112th birthday of Frank Zamboni, I don’t know which I found cooler… the game itself, or the fact that I was getting to it entirely over IPv6:
(Address bar IPv6 info courtesy of the IPvFoo extension for Google Chrome.)
Just another moment when I’m glad that Google’s websites are accessible via IPv6! As a web developer, too, I had to know: is this Zamboni game done entirely in JavaScript? A StackExchange answer says that it is, which is fascinating.
P.S. And yes, that was as high as I let my score go… the Zamboni looks like it could be an enormous time-suck, and I do have some writing that needs to be done!
Jan 16
Are You A Redditor? Subscribe To The IPv6 Subreddit
Are you are redditor? Is Reddit one of your main sources of information, news and links? If so, have you checked out the IPv6 “subreddit”? It is at:
and currently has close to 4,000 readers subscribed to it. I’ve found it a useful place for both finding new links and stories and also for some interesting discussions related to those stories. If you’re a reddit user, do check it out!
P.S. And if you’re not a reddit user, there are many other places where IPv6 is discussed on other services.
Jan 14
FIR #686 – 1/14/13 – For Immediate Release
Math correction; new outro from Donna Papacosta; PRCA interview coming; Quick News: LinkedIn the preferred recruiter's tool, brand sites remain important, the end of regret-the-error as we know it, a look at Betterific; Ragan promo; News That Fits: PR's move into paid content, Dan York's report, customer service in social media age, Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop, listener comments, social networking adopted on intranets, Michael Netzley's Asia report, UK ambassadors and FCO staff are blogging; how to comment; music from Human Face; and more.
Jan 11
Tech Matters: Big Changes In The IPv6 Landscape
What kind of growth did we see for IPv6 in 2012? What did we see in terms of adoption of IPv6 within various industries? Yesterday our colleague Phil Roberts outlined his view on the “Big Changes In The IPv6 Landscape in 2012“. Phil wrote about many of the changes that happened over 2012, particularly with World IPv6 Launch in June. Here are some of the major developments he saw:
Today, ten percent of the Alexa Top 1000 websites are now enabled with IPv6 and large access networks have enabled IPv6 for their end users, according to measurements we made for World IPv6 Launch.
Four of the five largest websites in the world – Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo!, and Wikipedia – all serve IPv6 from their main websites today. In addition, content distribution networks like Limelight and Akamai are providing services to their customers to enable IPv6 hosted content, and hosting companies are making it possible for hosted websites to use IPv6 as well. The three largest web-hosting companies in Germany serve IPv6 for all their hosted websites.
Also at the end of 2012, there were significant deployments in access networks. AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Comcast in North America, RCS&RDS in Romania, CTC and Softbank in Japan, XS4ALL in the Netherlands, Swisscom in Switzerland, DT in Germany, and Internode in Australia all began enabling IPv6 for their end users, all without the end users needing to configure anything in their networks, and in fact, probably, most not even knowing they are using IPv6.
All of which is excellent news! Phil goes on to talk about Google’s measurement of over 1% of their traffic coming in over IPv6 and also the World IPv6 Launch measurements site that contains links to a variety of the sites measuring IPv6 traffic on an ongoing basis.
2012 was a great year for IPv6 – and now it’s time to continue building on that momentum. Have you deployed IPv6 yet for your network(s)? Is your website accessible over IPv6? Are your DNS entries available over IPv6?
If not… how can we help you? Check out our basic IPv6 information or our list of IPv6 resources to get started. And if you can’t find what you are looking for, please let us know and we’ll be glad to help you.
Let’s make 2013 and even better year for IPv6!
Jan 11
Still Time To Submit A DNSSEC Speaking Proposal for ICANN 46 in Beijing
As we mentioned previously, there will be another DNSSEC Deployment Workshop on April 10, 2013, as part of ICANN 46 in Beijing, China.
The program committee is still open to receiving proposals if you would like to be considered for the agenda.
These DNSSEC workshops at ICANN meetings are outstanding places to meet with people involved in DNSSEC deployment and to present ideas, case studies, new tools and more.
See our earlier article for a full list of the kinds of topics for which the program committee is seeking proposals. If you have a DNSSEC-related idea for a talk that doesn’t fit into those areas, don’t be afraid to submit it as the program committee provides that list for guidance.
The workshop agenda is filling up quickly… but there is still room for a few more speaking slots if you get a proposal in soon. You need to send your proposal to dnssec-beijing@shinkuro.com by January 15th to be considered.
And if you don’t want to present but are interested in attending, if you can get yourself to Beijing attendance at the DNSSEC Deployment Workshop is free. The event will also be live-streamed out so you will be able to watch it remotely.
Jan 11
Join the Google+ "IP Communications & VoIP" Community
https://plus.google.com/communities/114149566116254233716
Given that Randy is very active on Google+, this community is also very active, both through Randy's posts as well as the comments and posts of others. I've already learned a good bit from a couple of the discussions that have occurred there.
There are other Google+ communities that you might find interesting, too, such as those related to DNSSEC and IPv6, but Randy's is a great one for VoIP / IP communications / UC topics. Check it out and join in the conversations....
Plus, if you haven't checked out the VUC calls that occur each Friday at noon US Eastern, they, too, are definitely worth listening to and participating in.
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Jan 10
T-Mobile Rolling Out HD Voice (Wideband) In US Mobile Network
There is, of course, the caveat that HD voice (also called "wideband audio") is only available using specific smartphones:
To experience HD Voice, both parties on the call must use capable T-Mobile 4G smartphones such as the HTC One™ S, Nokia Astound and Samsung Galaxy S® III
TheNextWeb also suggests that the iPhone 5 should support HD Voice when T-Mobile makes it available on their network sometime this year.
Over on AnandTech, Brian Klug dives into a bit more detail about T-Mobile's HD Voice, specifically naming the AMR-WB codec, and relays some of his own testing that confirmed that it is live now.
This is an excellent step forward, even with the caveat that it only works on T-Mobile's 4G network and only with specific smartphones. As more and more people get used to the richer and better quality of wideband audio, expectations will rise and continue to push the ongoing migration of all telecom over to IP-based solutions.
Kudos to the technical teams at T-Mobile for making this happen!
P.S. I'm also personally pleased to learn about this because T-Mobile supports IPv6 across their mobile network, too. Now if only they could improve their coverage in southwestern New Hampshire, I'd be able to actually consider switching to them.
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Jan 08
Attending CES? Visit the ARIN Booth To Learn How Critical IPv6 Is For Consumer Electronics
Are you attending the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week in Las Vegas? If so, you can visit the ARIN team at booth 35175 in South Hall 4 to learn about why IPv6 and why it is critically important for consumer electronics devices.
As the folks behind the TeamARIN site say in their article today, CES: Why All Internet-Enabled Consumer Devices Need IPv6 :
At the end of the day, a consumer will be sorely disappointed if they purchase an 80-inch 3D television and it cannot connect to the entire Internet, and that means the TV needs to be IPv6 compatible. Manufacturers, designers and engineers need to adopt IPv6 today so that their consumer products can compete in the market in years to come.
We agree! If you are at CES and want to understand more about why you need to be thinking about IPv6 in consumer devices, stop by the ARIN booth and ask them your questions.
