Enabling flexibility in addressing IPv4 address exhaustion in residential networks.To cope with IPv4 exhaustion, service providers basically have two strategies: IPv6 transition, where IPv6 is introduced into the network while maintaining IPv4 services and connectivity; and IPv4 continuity, where the aim is to use network address translation (NAT) techniques to manage IPv4 address exhaustion by overloading IPv4 address usage. The Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR supports several different flavors of large-scale NAT (LS-NAT) as well as different IPv6 transition techniques to introduce IPv6 into the network while maintaining continuity of IPv4 services.IPv6 is gaining wider-scale deployment and acceptance; however, IPv4 services will still be needed for a long time. As a result, service providers will need to embrace dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 services. Alcatel-Lucent had the foresight to add support for dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 services to the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR because consumers will need to access both IPv4 and IPv6 servers for information, commerce and entertainment.