IT Pros Diss Google For Android’s Lack Of Support For IPv6

June 25, 2015 at 12:48 pm By

While there was much excitement surrounding Apple’s announcement of IPv6 for its iOS9 software update, Google is on the receiving end of criticism from IT pros because of Android’s lack of support for the new network management upgrade.

“DHCPv6 is an outgrowth of the DHCP protocol used in the older IPv4 standard – it’s an acronym for ‘dynamic host configuration protocol,’ and is a key building block of network management,” says Jon Gold of Network World.

“Nevertheless, Google’s wildly popular Android devices – which accounted for 78% of all smartphones shipped worldwide in the first quarter of this year – don’t support DHCPv6 for address assignment.”

Google developer Lorenzo Colliti weighs in on the reason why Google has a problem with the DHCPv6 upgrade. He says that it will break legacy apps that rely on IPv4 and force developers to adopt IPv6 according to the article.

Pardon me for being overly blunt, but choosing my IPv6-related deployment options for my network(s) isn’t your damn job,” wrote one user, according to the article.

That user isn’t the only one who things Google might be dropping the ball one this one, high level directors in the field are also giving their input on a possible fault in Google’s logic.

If we’re living in this BYOD world … that can be problematic, because the whole idea besides the money-saving thing is that the end-user is asking for this. By forfeiting [DHCPv6 support], I think Android and Google are causing some trouble in the near-term,” said Will Stofega, IDC director for mobile phones.

Google now has to decide whether or not they are going to please the IT professionals and developers who are anxious to see IPv6 in the works or if it will continue to duck the new network management system and find a way to work around it.

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