IPV6...

[#1]

thanks buddy - sky i worked for and seemed to have gone down hill...i dont mind paying premium as long as its unlimited, ipv6 and can use my own router on it

[#2]

@snadge 

I believe Zen do IPv6 as standard and issue a highly regarded router.

Brian

[#3]

I just noticed that the ISP Review article got updated in mid-November...

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/10/update-on-ipv6-plans-for-virgin-media-talktalk-and-vod...

Plusnet say there that they are hoping to roll out IPV6 beginning in the spring. 

[#4]

My non-Plusnet router says

Note: You must reconfigure the IPv6 Tunnel settings every time you reboot the router. Make sure the desired WAN connection is connected before the configuration.

<sad face>

I expect the plan is that BT will donate its unwanted IPV4 addresses to Plusnet as the company churns its customers.

Can't see the average customer messing with router settings or offering to pay for a new router. 😱

[#5]

A tunnel is different to native IPv6, and it's likely that reconfiguring it will only be needed if your IPv4 address is dynamic and changes on router reboot (and hence, getting a fresh connection). With a fixed IPv4 address, I've not had this problem using an IPv6 connection via HE's tunnelbroker service.

BT and Sky managed to turn on IPv6 without many customers noticing the change. As mentioned above and in the article linked to, with dual-stack you get IPv4 working just as it always did and add IPv6 working alongside it. These days, web browsers use "happy eyeballs" where they try IPv4 and IPv6 in parallel (with perhaps a delay between one and the others ?) - so users have mostly been spared seeing problems with badly setup sites*.

For the majority of users still using the "free" router provided by their ISP, there will be no changes needed - the ISP can push a config update and it will happen automagically. For those using their own router, it's likely that an initial setup will be needed (if the right service is not already turned on), but after that it should automatically gets the IPv6 address allocation from the ISP (eg via DHCP6 Prefix Delegation) every time it brings the WAN link up and automatically configure it's LAN services to pass the addressing on to your LAN devices.

* At one time, BT's main site had an AAAA DNS entry, but didn't serve a site on it !

[#6]

“ BT and Sky managed to turn on IPv6 without many customers noticing the change”

Indeed for the vast majority of customers IPv6 delivers no discernible difference / functionality / benefit.

[#7]

"Indeed for the vast majority of customers IPv6 delivers no discernible difference / functionality / benefit."

Such an out of date attitude given RIPE is now officially out of space to allocate. Sure, NAT is a great workaround and the people who came up with ipv6 could possibly have done more to make it backwards compatible but we have to move forward.

[#8]

Indeed, NAT has been an abomination for too many years - and the people who thing it's not a problem are the ones oblivious to how much developer effort is WASTED in making stuff work in spite of NAT borkage. If the manhours and money spent on implementing NAT, and the much much higher values spent on working around it's borkage had been spent on better things, then we'd be a lot further ahead in many areas.

FTP doesn't work through NAT without an ALG in the NAT gateway - and those sometimes get things wrong so transfers fail.

Pretty well every VoIP provider has to provide a NAT proxy for clients to connect to because otherwise it's "interesting" getting SIP to work. That's a significant cost to the VoIP provider (probably on a par with the cost of the "PBX service" itself) which is ultimately paid for by the customers.

Multi-user games rely on either "working around" NAT, or rely on a cloud host to route traffic about. Either way there's a cost, and a cost in latency.

Bit Torrents (and yes, they have many legitimate uses) need help to work through NAT.

Lots of Internet of Tat stuff relies on cloud servers as a means of working through NAT - especially in facilitating access from the net to home devices.

And the list can go on and on and on. And all this has a support overhead as well, in fielding customer questions, providing assistance in setting up port forwarding, and stuff like that.

So yeah, many users simply won't notice that there's no NAT going on - that doesn't mean they aren't getting benefits. And in time, the problems with IPv4 are only going to get worse and worse - you could take the "not a problem now, kick it down the road" approach, but that risks reaching an "oh s**t, I wish I'd started on this project a few years ago" point when it's a bit late.

[#9]

You both make the point well - for niche users IPv6 delivers benefits, however for the majority the benefits that they see will be minimal.

That is not to suggest that migration to full IPv6 is not desirable but it’s not the do or die case some present. IPv6 is not without its own issues.

[#10]

No, for almost ALL users, IPv6 offers benefits - just maybe not noticeable (yet) for (most) users.

AIUI, many have found that IPv6 connections tend to offer lower round trip times - that equates to quicker page loads etc. As pointed out, pretty well everyone goes through NAT at the moment - and that has costs (if only in latency in their low spec home router). But as the problem becomes worse and CG NAT gets more widespread, then there'll be additional latency there as well.

And as I pointed out, mitigation techniques like CGNAT have a real cost that will only increase if traffic doesn't get moved to IPv6. That cost can only be paid for from one place - the customers.

OK, how about an analogy - not a brilliant one I admit. Once upon a time, "fuel injection" was one of those top end features that no-one could see the benefits of. Now you'll struggle to find any car that doesn't have computer controlled fuel injection. Do the drivers of these cars see any benefit from being fuel injected instead of having carburettors ? You could argue, no they don't - either would get them from A to B, at one time carbs were well understood and FI was "black magic" that few understood and fewer could fix, but now the situation has reversed. FI is now near enough universal, and drivers without even knowing it's there get the benefits of better fuel economy and hence lower costs - few will have "asked for FI", it's just something they don't care about under the bonnet, but they get benefits from it.

[#11]

I've never had any problems with IPV4 or using NAT on any data protocol such as FTP, bit torrent or anything else.

Since (local) IPV6 addresses are not static, how does ssh work?

Name one advantage of IPV6 to the user.😀

[#12]

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@VileReynard wrote:

Name one advantage of IPV6 to the user.😀

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An Internet that can continue to grow.

[#13]

The problem I have with NAT is its a one way process really. So from my home network I can go out to the internet, but if from the internet I want you to be able to access a machine in my network, then I have to write a shed load or forwarding NAT rules to get the connection through; so for example to make a web site that I host on my internal network (all be it hidden) is a right hassle to make it available out in the wider world.

To my mind a network should be largely symmetric so can go in both directions.

[#14]

You could just port forward 80 to the internal machine (one port).

Adding port 8080 and 22 (or its replacement) makes a total of 3 rules.

That's a very small shedload.

A symmetric network is only possible if you aren't bothered about using a separate firewall device.

[#15]

"You could just port forward 80 to the internal machine (one port)."

This is still a workaround and at an enterprise level, no longer feasible or scalable where multiple services/servers are involved.

"A symmetric network is only possible if you aren't bothered about using a separate firewall device."

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here. My guess is that you alluding to NAT bring part of the firewall process?