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back to article Telstra hauls in wholesale IPv6

Aussie telco Telstra has opened the gates to IPv6, offering enterprise, government and wholesale customers access to the next generation of internet addresses. Telstra’s internet backbone is now fully dual-stacked, which means customers can be connected with either IPv4 or IPv6. The current IPv4 offers 32 bits for an internet …

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  1. Lance 3

    128-bits

    IPv6 is not really 128-bits; it is really just 64-bits. If you follow the specs, the smallest subnet that can be assigned is 64-bits. Sure the ISP's could use DHCP6, which will cuae problems if there is more than one machine at the location. So the ISP will be assigning a /64 to each subscriber. With 64-bits for network and 64-bits for host addresses, IPv6 is more of a 64-bit addressing scheme. The way people are assigning address space, how long before they start to run out? Some ISP's are thinking of assigning a /56 or a /60 to every subscriber. Have a point-to-point link; that uses a /64 as well if you follow the spec.

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    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: 128 bits

      But by the same logic, classful IP4 is just 24 bits and we ran out of those addresses nearly two decades ago. 64 bits is a trillion times more space and even a /56 is a billion times larger. Furthermore, network renumbering is a core part of the IPv6 protocol suite so if ISPs decide later that they should only have given out /96s, they will almost certainly be able to retrofit the change.

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      1. Lance 3
        Reply Icon

        Wrong

        IPv4 doesn't really differentiate between the network and the host portion LIKE IPv6 does.

        Autoconfig won't work then now would it? The BARE minimum would be /80 and even if they did that, how many IP stacks would be broken?

        With IPv6, a multinational company will need to get assignments from each registry.

        Ken, have you actually deployed IPv6 yet? I have!

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    About time…

    Now if only they offered this on NextG wireless, instead of relying on CGN, I'd be much happier.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    OMG! WOW!

    "The deployment of IPv6 into the network is an ongoing programme of work, and we’ll make this available for other networks such as DSL and our wireless networks over time"

    Oh silly me... Wholesale not retail. Gotta be careful of the wording of those press releases.

    The old homeless looking guy icon, cause thats what I be if I had to rely on telstra actually delivering anything.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Wait, what!?

    Telstra...Aussie Telstra... one of the most reviled ISPs on the planet is leading the way in IPv6?!

    Is this an episode of the Twilight zone?

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    1. T.a.f.T.
      Reply Icon

      That very eager one

      Have you never let an... enthusiastic friend be the first one to cross the rotten looking log over a river. Sure Timmy you go first (and the rest of us will find your body down stream if it all goes wrong)

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Angel

      Internode have been doing this for 12 months+

      Internode (another well known Aussie ISP) have been running dual stack IPv4 and IPv6 for a while now, encouraging their customers - including home ADSL ones - to try it out if they want:

      http://ipv6.internode.on.net

      They went through an extensive trial period with customers, then recently upgraded that to a fully supported "production" quality service offering.

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  5. welshie
    Meh

    CPE routers

    And once again, the CPE routers for general consumers (ie, the cheap ones that ISPs bundle free with service) still aren't capable of IPv6. So, well done to Telstra on getting a dual stack backbone, but until proper working IPv6 'just works' right down to end-users' equipment, we're still playing a waiting game.

    (Yes, I do have IPv6 at home, but that's only via a tunnel, yoghurt pots and bits of string)

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      They're coming…

      A few points…

      (1) Consumer routers are slowly coming out with IPv6 support. Netcomm did announce that they plan to start supporting it. The FritzBox also supports it.

      (2) It is possible for the ISP to set up a 6-in-4 tunnel, terminated at their end, to each customer, in order to provide IPv6 access via a v4-only router. People already do this, using tools such as the gogoc client for Freenet… all the ISP needs to do is set up a suitable tunnel broker server, and issue.client software to their users.

      (3) As most routers can be flashed with third-party firmware supporting IPv6, there is also the option of businesses performing the flashing (and optionally, support) to assist in the transition while we wait for (1) to happen.

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  6. settantta
    WTF?

    They're a bit slow...

    Telstra is in fact the second Australian ISP to make IPv6 available to all customers. Internode launched their IPv6 for general use a couple of months ago, and have been trialling it for over a year. (They also offer much better service than Telstra...)

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  7. James Woods

    title

    Think back to the early days of the internet. Dialup isps and heck even early cable isps did not allocate enough resources for their customers.

    Dial-up cut corners with customer/modem ratios. Some early cable companies did it (adelphia) by not having enough ip's for customers so while you were connected you never had an ip and thus weren't on the internets.

    Things have changed now and isps have reverted to just flat out lying about the service they sold you. Ya know that unlimited always-on fast as hell internet service (that by the way your limited to 250mb/month of a transfer) with. But be sure to blow it all on our own websites to watch movies.

    With the ip's it's no different. Back in the day we didn't use as many ipv4 as we of course do today however when you look at ipv6 one of the things we have never seen yet is attacks.

    Just think of what's going to happen with all those ip's. Right now we're all just babes in the woods when getting attacked by ripe or afnic ip's since there is no recourse. Alot of it is paid for with our US tax dollars to begin with thanks to groups like the ISOC who I support but who are mus-guided on where the resources need to go.

    We are all going to learn the hard way about what having all these ip's in the pool is going to mean. Spam, attacks, virii. It's all alot easier to track with ipv4.

    And unless the ipv6 ip's are "unlimited" don't put it past ARIN to not screw it up. They gave away ipv4 like we would never run out.

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    1. Lance 3
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Understanding IPv6

      Do you understand IPv6? Sure you have a lot of addresses with a /64 at home, but that doesn't mean they can't be tracked.

      1) With autoconfig, the MAC address is used.

      a) Sure people can change the MAC's or DHCP6.

      2) The network portion is being assigned per subscriber, so they can STILL track the user on the account.

      a) Right now you have one IP per subscriber and they just do to the user that has that IP and it doesn't matter if NAT was used.

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  8. James 100
    FAIL

    Upgrade time - started years ago

    I'm dual-stacked at home - thanks to a tunnel into Hurricane Electric's free TunnelBroker, no thanks to Virgin Media, who seem to dismiss any customer enquiries about IPv6 support with "IPwhat?"

    It's going to be a very long transition on current plans, though: the servers all need IPv4 addresses until everyone has migrated, and the clients all need IPv4 addresses too unless you rely on the DNS64/NAT64 hack, which breaks DNSSEC. Really, IPv6 needs a better migration strategy than it has right now.

    I'm pleasantly surprised at Telstra making this move - did they really have customers demanding it, as opposed to a handful of geeks rebuking them for not doing it yet? As it stands, the "you must implement IPv6 because ..." is rather lacking in good endings.

    @James Woods: valid points in a sense, though we can track an IPv6 address in much the same way we can an IPv4 one - you track 2001:0DB8:beef:cafe::/64 just the same way you would 198.51.100.0/24 (and indeed both are assigned to the same entity in this case). Your post brought back depressing memories of being assured on Slashdot that we must all rush to adopt IPv6 immediately, because it's virus and spam proof thanks to implementing the record route feature (which IPv4 also has) which, I was told, prevents TCP spoofing...

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  9. kain preacher

    Comcast

    The problem is you dont have home routers that do IP6. Now if you connected directly to the modem you get an IP6. Now I found out that unless you DNS is on google's white list they won't serve up ip6 pages for their apps .

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