PlusNet IPV6?

[#1]

Just checking whether PlusNet got into the 21st century yet. Are there any news on IPv6 support?

[#2]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Fibre to Everything Else

[#3]

@ezplanet 

In a word no. I suspect that the release of a much rumoured new hub and a FTTP product is a higher priority, unless of course all three are introduced at the same time.

[#4]

New hub? What is the value to me?

FTTP product? Technically FTTP is a service, not a product, Openreach is working on it, not PlusNet, and 90% of the work is on the road side, what are PlusNet engineers busy doing? Watching Openreach engineers doing the work?

IPv6 would benefit everyone, now. My £10 BTHH5 OpenWRT router supports IPv6. Every Cisco or other Cisco competitor network appliance have supported IPv6 for a good portion of the last 20 years. What is the matter with enabling it?

[#5]

@ezplanet 

PlusNet engineers will be working on getting the back office systems ready for FTTP. Apart from anything else the PN system works on a telephone number - with FTTP it is possible to have a connection without a phone line. For example, many new builds have no copper line.

As for IPv6 it costs money to implement and operate so PN engineers will have to ensure everything works before implementation.

Brian

[#6]

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@ezplanet wrote:

IPv6 would benefit everyone now.

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You’ll have to excuse my ignorance as I have no idea what the benefits are that I am missing.. I have no problems with accessing any website with which I wish to connect.

[#7]

Not a lot new in this article - matbe late next year.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/11/update-on-ipv6-plans-for-virgin-media-talktalk-plusnet...

Brian

[#8]

I've been waiting for _years_ now for IPv6.   I'm currently using a hurricane-electric tunnel but it's not exactly ideal.

Can we have some actual update with a date, or even a range of dates from Plusnet?   As it stands, this is turning into a deal-breaker for me to the extent where I'm prepared to drop my referral discount and pay to terminate my contract early.

Why is this taking so long?

[#9]

I don't have anything to share, but I'm curious @jch - for what reasons do you consider it a deal-breaker? What element of IPv6 connectivity is so critical to you that you would consider paying to exit your contract?

Genuinely curious BTW. Not trying to bait. 

[#10]

1) Because there are countries outside the insular UK where the internet is more evolved and there are more and more sites accessible only using IPv6
2) Because I have a business and I need to offer access to my overseas customers who are already on IPv6
3) Because IPv6 allows me to have a large number of public IP address that I use for my different domains

[#11]

Thanks.

Are you able to share any examples of (1) that don't fall into the 'experimental' category or have an IPv4 equivalent?

For (2), I assume those customers haven't been completely jettisoned from the ability to access IPv4 resources?

For (3), I wouldn't personally assume that static IPv6 assignments will be a thing even when it does come along. I don't say that with any insider knowledge, rather an awareness of how other ISP's in similar market space have approached things.

I'm in the +1 camp for IPv6 BTW, even if what I've wrote above might not sound like it

[#12]

MY assumption would be that if we had IPv6 then I'd have a /64 (or maybe /96) and that it would be static.  With SixXS I had a /48 but from which I could carve as many /64 subnets as I wanted -- it was, of course, statically allocated.   With Hurricane, I just have the one /64 which is fine for my purposes: I have a relatively modest number of machines reachable over the IPv6 network.  (Working knowledge of IPv6 is important for my day job, btw.)

The problems I'm having with the hurricane tunnel are that (a) I need to periodically re-create the tunnel because my Ubiquiti Unify setup periodically forgets it and (b) it limits the PMTU to 1472 which causes problems for some applications, notably some VPNs.  Those two problems are somewhat wearing.

There's also a problem that some services think I'm using a VPN to get. around location issues, that I'm not in the UK.   Again, this is something I can fix in the firewall (disable outbound access to the hosts), but that's another problem that's also wearing.

I was disappointed when SixXS stopped operating all those years ago and I thought "Plusnet can't be far behind now".  How wrong I was.  As I'm dependent, one way or another, on having IPv6 connectively I got myself a new tunnel, thinking it would be a short-term fix to a problem.

Years, now, of working around problems that should not exist have taken their toll.   I've been with Plusnet for what seems like forever: I can remember starting with a 256kb/s down link (a massive step up from the 4.5kB/s free modem service) and being in the beta program for FTTC.  Mostly it's been a good service and the static IPv4 address that's mine for the asking is great.  However, having had an FTTP end point sat five metres from the house for, oh, 18 months and no sign of Plusnet being able to offer that and no IPv6 in the offing have taken their toll -- this isn't the Plusnet that cares about me any more: They just want to offer me a phone contract that's worse than what I have and BT sport in which I have less than zero interest

I've been recommending Plusnet to anyone that asks for ages now as well, but I can't, in all honesty do that any more and I'm really disappointed about that.

[#13]

@jch 

Pure speculation this!

An Admin member of staff recently posted he would be very surprised if you couldn't order PlusNet FTTP in the "very near future" (his italics). I believe the delay has been due to problems re-writing PlusNet back office systems to handle FTTP.

ISPReview also just published an article saying that PlusNet were about to introduce Automatic Compensation - once again the delay was put down to getting back office systems working.

I wonder if the Holy Trinity would be for IPv6 to come at the same time. Once again getting systems to work with both IPv4 and IPv6 have been talked about in the past.

Brian

[#14]

To me IPv6 benefits all users, whereas FTTP only benefits some, so IPv6 should be the priority.

IPv6 has a solid benefit for me; VPN access to some of the offices for the company I work for. Some of the offices are connected via ISPs that implement the DS-Lite protocol (IPv6 Dual-Stack Lite | Junos OS | Juniper Networks). They can get IPv6 blocks assigned to them, but, because of DS-Lite being basically the same as carrier grade NAT for IPv4 packets, they can't get an externally accessible static IPv4 address assigned.

As for FTTP; I live in a town where there's a Victorian era bridge over a railway line with 3/4 of the town, and the BT exchange, on one side, and 1/4 of the town, the business park, and industrial units, on the other. The 3/4s have FTTP, the 1/4 have been told the conduits in the bridge are full, there's no chance of adding capacity any time soon, and so 1/4 of the town won't get FTTP. I'm part of the 1/4, and I really don't see it as likely that someone is going to rebuild the bridge to allow more physical capacity any time soon, and so FTTP isn't of any real benefit to me.

When folk talk about FTTP being prioritised over IPv6 it gives me the impression that PlusNet aren't aligned with my priorities, and I doubt I'm alone. I'm actually OK on my 80/20 FTTC vDSL link, FTTP would be nice, but I'd far rather have IPv6 so I can VPN to the offices I work with rather than having to use a Chrome Remote Desktop workaround. 

I know IPv6 is possible for me because my previous ISP offered it. I know FTTP isn't going to be coming any time soon because of that Victorian bridge. For me the only issue now is will IPv6 arrive before my contract expires, and if it doesn't I know to better research the capabilities of the ISP I move to.

[#15]

A useful website...

https://ipv6bingo.com/

Some of these look familiar

(Posted for amusement)