The once and future internet: infrastructural tragedy and ambiguity in the case of IPv6

ABSTRACT The Internet as we currently recognise it was institutionally established in 1983 when all hosts connected to the then ARPANET were required to have adopted the relatively new Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) technologies. Thirteen years later, in 1996, a replacement standard was established for the IP protocol, to resolve key anticipated technical problems. More than 20 years later, those technical problems have indeed arisen, and yet the “new” protocol, IPv6, is still not widely deployed. This paper explores technical and institutional aspects of this case in order to examine how the evolving contexts of infrastructure use may turn technological solutions into infrastructural problems.

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