[ih] IP version 7

[Stephen Casner]

On Fri, 18 Dec 2020, Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:

> On 12/18/2020 8:39 AM, Barbara Denny via Internet-history wrote:
> > Just in case people aren't aware of the Internet Stream Protocol,
> > I thought I would mention the ST packets used version 5 in the IP
> > header.
>
> Does that mean that IPv5 got earlier and better deployment than IPv6?

Earlier, yes; better, no.

A significant fraction, perhaps a majority, of the traffic on the
Wideband Satellite Network of the 1980s used the ST protocol, first
version 1 and then version 2.  That network was the motivation for the
design of ST.  Using ST to establish connections rather than just
sending datagrams allowed the multi-access satellite protocol to
preallocate bandwidth and thereby deliver packets with a single hop
delay rather than two (one to request a time slot and a second for the
data transit).

One could argue whether the internetworking layer is the right place
to implement such functionality.

> And how does it compare now?

Probably none at all.

                                                        -- Steve