Comparison of QoS influence to VoIP traffic into native and tunnel mode IPv6 networks

Quality of Service (QoS) in data networks refers to control mechanisms for reservation of network resources and traffic prioritization for specific network applications and types of data flows. Every network application can have their own demands for specific QoS parameters, such as bandwidth, delay, jitter or packet loss. Rapid grow of Internet has initiated the development of the Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) which is offering much more IP addresses in comparison to the older Internet protocol version 4 (IPv4). Because of lack of compatibility between those two protocols and the need to use both protocols simultaneously, tunnel model for IPv6 over IPv4 was developed to allow transfer of IPv6 packets in situation when the sender and receiver do not have end-to-end native IPv6 network, by using existing IPv4 network infrastructure. Measurements done in a real time environment shows negligible difference in QoS parameters for VoIP traffic in native and tunnel mode IPv6 networks. This is important for future transition from IPv4 to IPv6 protocol, where tunnel mode IPv6 is one of the temporary solutions.