As enterprises investigate a move from legacy Layer 2 services like frame relay and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) to multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), Qwest "can get a leg up on our competition," he said, by offering IPv6 transition planning services with the network upgrade.
"Any fundamental transition like this provides the opportunity to win business … and I believe that not just Qwest but all carriers will try to take advantage of that," Poll said. "Every time you're in front of a customer, you have an opportunity. And as an industry, I think we should be leveraging that."
But IPv6 migration strikes service providers and enterprises alike as labor-intensive and expensive. Likewise, simply meeting with customers to educate them on the IPv6 transition will not rake in the cash for service providers.
In fact, operators haven't shown much enthusiasm for charging a premium for IPv6 transport alone or as part of a bundled service.
Verizon, which has been sending sales representatives out to enterprise customer sites to promote IPv6 migration, has no plans to charge customers for IPv6 transport on an existing link, according to William Schmidlapp, senior consultant for product marketing at Verizon Business.
"We don't charge for transportation of the v6 protocol because it is [compensating for] a protocol deficiency," he said.
Although Qwest has not yet decided how it will monetize its IPv6 migration outreach with enterprises, Poll said he expected consultancy and business services would be more successful than selling it as a product.
"No, I think there is no direct IPv6 bundle you could do that is somehow going to generate incremental revenue," Poll said. "But there's a lot behind that, including consulting, [which] you could do to take some of the burden off the enterprise customer -- where you absolutely can create [revenue] opportunity."