RFC 3701 (rfc3701) - Page 2 of 6

6bone (IPv6 Testing Address Allocation) Phaseout

RFC 3701                  6bone Phaseout Plan                 March 2004


   allocation" of 3FFE::/16 in [TEST-NEW].  During the fall of 1998, in
   anticipation of [AGGR], the 6bone was re-addressed under the
   3FFE::/16 prefix with little problems.

   From the fall of 1998, until the issuance of this note, the 6bone has
   continued to successfully operate with Aggregatable Global Unicast
   Address prefixes from the 3FFE::/16 allocation, using a set of 6bone
   routing practice rules specified in [GUIDE], and later refined to
   6Bone backbone routing guidelines in [PRACTICE].

   During its lifetime the 6bone has provided:

      - a place for early standard developers and implementers to test
        out the IPv6 protocols and their implementations;

      - a place for early experimentation with routing and operational
        procedures;

      - a place to evolve practices useful for production IPv6 prefix
        allocation;

      - a place to provide bootstrap qualification for production IPv6
        address prefix allocation;

      - a place to develop IPv6 applications;

      - a place for early users to try using IPv6 in their hosts and
        networks.

   As clearly stated in [TEST-NEW], the addresses for the 6bone are
   temporary and will be reclaimed in the future.  It further states
   that all users of these addresses (within the 3FFE::/16 prefix) will
   be required to renumber at some time in the future.

   Since 1999 planning for, and allocation of, IPv6 production address
   prefixes by the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) community has been
   underway.  During 2002 more production IPv6 address prefixes had been
   allocated than are allocated by the 6bone at the top level.  It is
   generally assumed that this is one reasonable indicator that planning
   for a 6bone phaseout should begin.

   It is generally assumed that there is still some remaining need for
   the 6bone, at least for current usage that will take time to evaluate
   and possibly move to production IPv6 networks when possible.

   It is generally viewed that the 6bone is an IETF activity as it was
   established by IETF participants to assist the IETF in developing
   IPv6 protocols, and also to assist in the IPv6 transition.  To this



Fink & Hinden                Informational