With the completion of the first phase of its IPv6 deployment, Sprint (NYSE: S) hopes it can take the IPv6 migration worry out of its business and wholesale customer's hands.
To help customers bridge the IPv4 to IPv6 divide, Sprint is offering a dual-stack solution that allows IPv6 to coexist with a customers' IPv4 network. This migratory strategy means that customers won't have to change their network design, meaning they can grow into the deployment and perform the necessary troubleshooting and management processes it will take to run the IPv6 protocol on their respective networks.
Sprint's IPv6 drive is multifaceted. The service provider has plotted out additional deployment phases that will continue through 2010 and then by the end of the year, it will add IPv6 capabilities to its remaining U.S. network sites and then its international backbone, including points of presence in both Europe and Asia-Pacific. As a result, business and wholesale network partners will be able to access IPv6 capabilities on Sprint's SprintLink Dedicated Internet Access service.
In phase two of its IPv6 deployment, Sprint will add IPv6 support to its Global MPLS Layer 3 VPN network, which it plans to roll out in 2011 and then its wireless network in 2012. However new these capabilities seem to the outside world, Sprint is not a novice in the IPv6 game as it has been providing IPv6 services on its Peerless IP network since 2007.
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