back to article Ofcom mulls selling UK govt's IPv4 cache amid IPv6 rollout flak

The UK is in danger of falling behind the rest of the world in rolling out IPv6 networking, while Ofcom sees pound signs and focuses on workarounds, it's claimed. In a thought-provoking blog post, internet policy expert Emily Taylor digs into the UK's adoption of IPv6 – an upgrade to internet infrastructure that experts have …

  1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

    Oh FFS!

    They are the industry regulators, just how damn hard is it for them to impose a time limit and fines on the operators? Set an achievable date of say 2016 and fine any ISP that has not provided working IPv6 as far as the customers, per day, after that date.

    Of course, there will be customers without IPv6 support in older routers and end computers, but if the ISP-supplied kit is usable then any supported Windows, Mac or Linux PC is going to be just fine.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Oh FFS!

      But what about all the customer premises equipment behind the ISP's router, who will be responsible for upgrading that by your deadline?

      If I have a domestic alarm system, or a smart TV, or STB, etc. which only speaks IPv4, who will be responsible for upgrading it to IPv6? Who will pay? OK, the ISPs could be required to provide dual-stack equipment but how many domestic users will be able to configure equipment for it, and/or understand how to troubleshoot it?

      It's fine for us without our knowledge of the protocols, I've had a working dual-stack desktop system for 15-odd years, but I still wouldn't like to have to convert my whole home network to IPv6 or joint-stack operation. The Unix/Linux/Windows 7 boxes are easy-ish, the rest most certainly are not

      This is not a trivial problem to solve, and throwing an arbitrary date to ISPs won't solve it.

      1. Dazed and Confused

        Re: Oh FFS!

        How many people out there are sad gits like me running blocks of routed IPv4 at home (I've had a /64 IPv6 for at least 10 years too A&A have long supported IPv6). Most ISP only provide a single IP address, then you run NAT after that. So why should it matter if the ISP provides you with an IPv6 address for the router. Inside you could still run IPv4 for your old kit, everyone will continue to need to be able to talk to IPv4 addresses in the big outside world.

        Just issue the edict and be done with it.

      2. P. Lee

        Re: Oh FFS!

        >But what about all the customer premises equipment behind the ISP's router, who will be responsible for upgrading that by your deadline?

        The first step is to get the ISP to support it. Whether or not customers want to use it is a different matter.

        1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

          Re: @P. Lee

          That was exactly my point, until the ISPs are offering unmolested IPv6 to customers (none of the "carrier grade NAT" crap), there is zero incentive for the customers to even consider having IPv6 internally.

          Yes, IPv6 has a lot of stupidity in its design (not being v4 backwards be design, assuming no one might want NAT in their own system for other reasons, etc) but it is the only realistic way out of IPv4 exhaustion and to give properties with multiple devices an easy way to have external connections if they want (whether that is a good idea is, of course, another matter).

          1. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: @P. Lee

            Yes, IPv6 has a lot of stupidity in its design

            Additionally, given these failings have been known since the 1990's and nothing has been done to address them, it does raise questions over the IETF's position on IPv6.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: @P. Lee

              You're asking for a fundamental impossibility here: you can't send packets directly between v4 and v6 due to the pigeon hole principle.

              What could the IETF possibly do about that?

            2. Yes Me Silver badge

              @Roland6

              What do you mean "nothing has been done"? Actually an enormous amount of work has been done in the IETF to make IPv6 in itself very usable. The problems are all those of coexistence of an exhausted, overloaded address space with a new one, that mathematically requires v4/v6 translation at the interface. But the operators with actual experience running CGNs (especially in countries with logging requirements, which is basically all countries except North Korea) know very well that CGN is *vastly* more costly and glitch-prone than rolling out IPv6.

              For the IETF's position on IPv6: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6540

              Ofcom have been seriously misled.

              -- Still hating the Register's new look, mainly reading ZDNET now --

              1. Roland6 Silver badge

                Re: @Roland6

                >What do you mean "nothing has been done"?

                Well we've known about the substantive IPv4-to-IPv6 transition problems for nearly 20 years now and the size of the hurdle just gets larger as the years go by. It is a little surprising that the IETF hasn't done anything substantive about it or putting out a realistic roadmap for transitioning a public network with billions of users and nodes - remember in the late 80's early 90's moving from proprietary networking to TCP/IP the task was much simpler because the networks were in the main wholly within an organisation and could be easily segmented into domains such as Office, factory and datacenter for purposes of migration and transitioning of services.

          2. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: @P. Lee

            "Yes, IPv6 has a lot of stupidity in its design (not being v4 backwards be design, assuming no one might want NAT in their own system for other reasons, etc) "

            0: IPv4 was a temporary kludge, intended to be in service for 5 years until the Internet Protocol in development was rolled out - that turned out to be IPX and unusable because it was unroutable.

            1: IPv4 was not compatible with the prior generation of IP (besides, there are gatewaying protocols available, but the fundamental problem is when ipv4 hosts want access to ipv6 addresses)

            2: NAT is an evil kludge. I'm one of the people responsible for popularising it being used by ISPs in the first place and it was an evil kludge when we rolled it out. 25 years later it's no less evil.

            2a: If you think NAT is bad, wait until you see NAT (customer equipment) behind ISP NAT (CGNAT if you're really lucky). Major breakage is the norm.

            3: The primary difference between IPv4 and IPv6 is 128 vs 48 bit addressing. There are still only 65535 ports and the address allocation methods per host are a little strange (allowing for localnet traffic to be treated differently to non-local network traffic), but actual routed traffic works the same way.

            4: Vint Cerf originally designed IPv4 with 128 bit addressing and was browbeaten into cutting back to 48 bits - because it was a temporary workaround to an existing lack of IP addresses. See point 0 above.

      3. Joe Montana

        Re: Oh FFS!

        Just require the ISPs to provide a dual stack by default service (which is already the case in most of the US), and for any isp supplied hardware to have it supported and enabled by default.

        Wether users choose to make use of the ipv6 portion is up to them, if they are typical home users connecting their recent versions of windows/osx/ilnux/whatever to the isp suplied router then v6 will just work by default.

        Support for other devices is down to the vendors of those devices, assuming those devices even need to communicate with the outside world (no reason you cant still use ipv4 on a lan long after the rest of the internet has moved on).

    2. streaky

      Re: Oh FFS!

      IPv4 address tax was what I suggested many a time. Triple benefit: raise money for treasury, push adoption and punish hoarders.

      Nobody listens to me though..

      End of the day there's no IPv4 space left in the real world, and I mean *none* not very little, if business doesn't get on board their ability to function will cease fairly soon.

  2. ZeroSum

    IPv6 Offcom

    Idiots. Even minimal research will tell them concentrating on life support for IPv4 is the wrong approach. The engineers in the largest UK ISPs have IPv6 almost ready to go. A little outside pressure on the ISP suits that are more focused on returns within 3-months than on the long term growth of the Internet would help push it over the top.

  3. CABVolunteer
    Unhappy

    Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

    Sadly, the author seems unaware of Ofcom's trackrecord of repeated failures in renumbering the telephone system - how many times did some users (eg in London) have to change their phone number over a period of just a few years? I'd rather make sure everyone knew exactly what's required before forcing a system for IPv6 by letting other nations do the pioneering; in any case, I fear Ofcom will botch it anyway......

    1. ZeroSum

      Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

      The early deployments of IPv6 in other countries are very cautious ones. There will be many years of developing it, particularly when it achieves critical mass and backwards compatibility with the legacy Internet reached through IPv4 BAN (Big Ass NAT) decline in importance.

      There's nothing to gain by delaying.

      1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

        Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

        "There's nothing to gain by delaying."

        Well, we could wait for the other countries to do the "years of developing" and then install a more polished solution at a cheaper price...

        1. ZeroSum

          Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

          > Well, we could wait for the other countries to do the "years of developing" and then install a more polished solution at a cheaper price...

          The IPv4 Internet didn't just arrive perfectly formed. Delaying IPv6 deployment marks out the UK as a technology laggard.

      2. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

        "The early deployments of IPv6 in other countries are very cautious ones. "

        Were, past tense.

        There's more IPv6 traffic moving across the USA and EU now than the entire Internet carried a decade ago.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

      repeated failures in renumbering the telephone system - how many times did some users (eg in London) have to change their phone number over a period of just a few years?

      Those were not "repeated failures". It was an intentional staged rollout to minimise the disruption to the country and users as a whole, and worked exactly as it was designed to. London users had to change components of their phone number on separate occasions, but the new number could almost always be derived mechanically from the old. Businesses had some cost and inconvenience of reprinting stationery, but the actual changover worked well.

      If the IPv4 -> IPv6 transition could be managed in the same way life would be a lot simpler. Unfortunately the design of IPv6 requires a total redesign and renumbering of the network, backward compatibility was intentionally disregarded as an option.

      The extension of the phone numbering range could, or course, have been done in the same way, in one single operation. Can you imagine the reaction if everyone on the country had been given a new, longer, phone number in one go? It might have seemed "better" or "simpler" to the engineers running the phone network, I can guarantee that the users would not have agreed.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

        It's not really the design of v6 that requires this, but the design of v4. The phone system lets you dial numbers of varying lengths, but the IPv4 header only has a fixed 32 bits for the destination address. There's no way to put a longer address in there.

        The good news is that v6 is backwards compatible in the sense that you can run it on the same networks that are currently running your v4, and you can run both at the same time. You don't need to totally redesign your networks for it and you don't even need to touch your v4 when rolling v6 out.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

        "Can you imagine the reaction if everyone on the country had been given a new, longer, phone number in one go?"

        Why imagine it? It pretty much happened, in April 1995, and was called PhONEday. The world didn't end as a consequence, I can't even remember any particular problems.

        In summary: landlines across most of the country got a 1 after the leading zero, and the rest of the number was unchanged. Different arrangements applied in a few cities where demand was particularly high, where they got new numbers starting with 011.

        Readers know where to look for more info:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhONEday

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

          In summary: landlines across most of the country got a 1 after the leading zero,

          Hardly a new number, then. Dial the old number, get a message saying "please redial the same number with an extra '1' ". It wasn't as if 01 234 5678 had become something like ff/4:87:ba:3f:00/24½ overnight.

          If only IPv6 had been designed like that...

          1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

            Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

            If only we had some sort of server system that supported domain names that could be mapped to these IP addresses...

          2. The Vociferous Time Waster

            Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

            Those numbers and letters are just a hex representation of the underlying binary. You know that right? The addresses have gone from 32 bit to 128 bit so it is largely trivial to keep the same last 32 bits and add a prefix if that is how you want to do your migration.

            Folks get all scared of v6 but it isn't really as bad as it seems.

            1. Yes Me Silver badge

              @ The Vociferous Time Waster

              " keep the same last 32 bits"

              That is NOT how IPv6 addressing works, sorry. Your address is all fresh and new.

              1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

                Re: @ The Vociferous Time Waster

                "That is NOT how IPv6 addressing works, sorry. Your address is all fresh and new"

                I'm assuming you misread his post, because you are both right - nothing stopping you setting the last 32 bits within your fresh and new address to match the IP4!

          3. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

            "If only IPv6 had been designed like that..."

            The issue isn't IPv6, it's IPv4 - it was a hacky kludge intended to be in service for 5 years at most.

            nearly 40 years later it's still with us.

          4. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

            "It wasn't as if 01 234 5678 had become something like ff/4:87:ba:3f:00/24½ overnight"

            And it isn't as if you go to an IP number 99.999% of the time.

            Apart from lan-local stuff or perhaps a particular host on the net when was the last time you didn't simply type "froobuzz.example.com" ?

        2. jonathanb Silver badge

          Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

          Reading for example went from 0734 to 01734, then about a year later to 01189. London went from 01 to 071 and 081, then to 0171 and 0181, and after that to 0207 and 0208.

          1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

            Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

            This article is ancient!

            How come posts are still allowed?!

            p.s. native Ipv6 on all my servers, and home devices ^including my android tablets/tv sticks)

      3. strum

        Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

        >worked exactly as it was designed to.

        Poppycock. They got it gloriously wrong. Twice.

      4. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

        "Can you imagine the reaction if everyone on the country had been given a new, longer, phone number in one go?"

        I don't need to imagine. I lived through it (not in the UK).

        It was MUCH easier to deal with. You just added the extra digits and carried on.

      5. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

        "Can you imagine the reaction if everyone on the country had been given a new, longer, phone number in one go?"

        I can. I lived through it. National publicity on "big bang" day meant that everyone was aware that area codes were changing and that phone numbers were longer now (Usually the last few digits of the area code became the leading new digits of the phone number)

        It was less hassle than people in the UK experienced, and less reprinting of stationery was required.

    3. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

      CABvolunteer

      Well yes, judging by London phone numbers, OFCOM and Bodge are close synonyms.

      To implement the London 8x and 7x numbers OFCOM had a changeover period where you still had to dial the old number [ 123 4567 ] within london, but 0208 or 0207 outside - even though the 020 was the new dialiing code for London and the 8 or 7 bit was part of the new internal number . Which means businesses dealing outside the 020 areas had to print stationery with (0207) prefixes for their phone numbers on, and then reprint them with 020 prefixes when the 7123 4567 form came on-stream properly

      Years later you still see printed phone numbers with the intermediate form. Often even now newly printed vehicle and shop signs may have (0207) 123 4567 instead of (020) 7123 4567. Most Londonors just get on with it, but it still causes confusion when, for example, giiving your phone number to someone who is coming to London or dictating a phone number for someone who is on the same exchange.

      And then they added 020 3x numbers, which pop up pretty much randomly..

      And how they could have allowed the way that London's phone books are (or were, who bothers with them anymore) organised is a total mystery. I live in a London postcode. But in a borough that has a lot of Outer London codes too.

      So do I get the London Directories matching my geographic postal district?

      Or do I get an Outer London one?

      More to the point, do I get to choose?

      What do you think?

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

        "So do I get the London Directories matching my geographic postal district?"

        Why bother with a "London Directories" at all. That's what online lookups are for.

    4. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Does anyone trust Ofcom to handling any IP addressing?

      "Sadly, the author seems unaware of Ofcom's trackrecord of repeated failures in renumbering the telephone system"

      I know the guy who finally sorted out the telephone system numbering issues and he didn't work for Ofcom.

      He's also making waves about the IPv6 issue.

      IPv6 uptake is high enough worldwide and in Europe that Trading Standards complaints on the basis of misleading advertising- "Internet access" now being restricted due to lack of IPv6 - are probably a better bludgeon.

  4. Lusty
    Facepalm

    Selling IPs?

    I thought IANA owned the IP addresses, and when they are no longer required they return to the pool for reuse. There never used to be a concept of buying and selling in the system, and the addresses technically don't belong to uk.gov for them to sell. Must admit I'd quite like to see OFCOM sell them and then IANA simply recall the range as unused by the party they were assigned to :)

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Selling IPs?

      Ownership is fuzzy, viz. the sale of Lucent's to Microsoft and others. Some of the original blocks were, it seems, entirely allocated to individual entities including companies.

      But it's dangerous precedent to set for the state to try and sell them and, thus, effectively legitimate the trade. The consequences of open trade in ip addresses (in real time, why not) could be disastrous: it would be akin to reallocate road names and numbers in real time!

      In any case while the 30 million might seem like a lot, they could be gone in a trice with IoT in any government department.

      And, should it ever come to selling the damn things, their value well decline even further as it becomes cheaper to adopt IPv6 with 4to6. In the meantime the UK's tech sector is losing out by not gaining experience with IPv6, especially in the area of security. Maybe they're waiting for GCHQ to signal that they know how to snoop IPv6 traffic?

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Selling IPs?

      "I thought IANA owned the IP addresses"

      Up to a point.

      Initial allocations were made personally by Jon Postel. These are not covered by IANA ownership.

      Technically, IP blocks cannot be traded. Practically, it happens all the time.

      If the UK govt declared a /8 as surplus, IANA and RIPE would be fully entitled to claw them back with zero compensation unless they predate IANA.

    3. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Selling IPs?

      IANA only own addresses dating to when they were created and Jon Postel handed administration of IP space over to them

      Virtually all class A allocations were assigned by Jon Postel before IANA was created and as such are regarded as personal property.

      Jon's the only person who could rescind the allocations and he died nearly 20 years ago.

      I know it's several years since the article was written but IPv6 is still a clusterfuck in the UK and the easiest way to make IPv4 valueless is to use IPv6. There are vested interests at work here.

  5. batfastad
    Black Helicopters

    IPv6

    OFCOM sells an unused IPv4 block. Re-invests profits into cheaper universal broadband access by mandating that BT offer ADSL without landline line rental charges (digital nation etc)!

    No wait, I got that wrong... Re-invests profits into swanky Southbank office space.

    Did I hear something about the Gov wanting ISPs (and all websites) to provide them with real-time logs so they can surveil by IP address? Pretty difficult to tie an end user or device to an IPv4 address. IPv6 however... oh I see!

    1. Chewi
      Boffin

      Re: IPv6

      You may find the opposite is true. IPv6 has privacy addressing.

      http://www.revk.uk/2014/11/privacy-addressing-and-government.html

      1. batfastad

        Re: IPv6

        @Chewi Actually had that article sat in my RSS for a month or so now so finally got around to reading it. Did not know about that. Nice one, cheers!

      2. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        Re: IPv6

        "You may find the opposite is true. IPv6 has privacy addressing.

        http://www.revk.uk/2014/11/privacy-addressing-and-government.html"

        Not relevant. That article is talking about the 64 bit 'host' part being unique, and therefore identifiable whatever /64 network it sits on.

        The point raised here is that home users can be given static IP6 addresses (whether a single address or a subnet) which will always be identifiable to that customer, irrespective of the setting of the host part

      3. psam

        Re: IPv6

        Currently ISP's are assigning static network prefixes, because it makes everything from the account , bandwidth, government enforced logging, tracking, support ticketing,upgrades, products (like burstable bandwidth, fast upgrades/downgrades) much easier.

        And when one ipv6 /48 is close to the internet currently on ipv4 and you have trillions fo them, you are not going to worry about running out of ips.

        So no, it is not the opposite that is true, privacy addressing/random mac changing is like saying you can use NAT behind your router because nobody will know who at 36 the avenue sw1 1aa was using that hardware with that mac address at that time , it could have been anyone.

        But instead of needing to go the ISP and say who did you assign this IP to on the 30th of March 2014 after that network reboot , they can ask "who did you assign this network prefix to, what is the physical address" . If you come back with "I had ipv6 privacy addressing on so you have no idea of the MAC address of the device that used this network prefix" they can say " we know it is 36 the avenue sw1 1aa so we don't give a fuck what ipad or iphone or mac or pc someone living here used"

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: IPv6

      mandating that BT offer ADSL without landline line rental charges (digital nation etc)!

      Really? And who will pay for the lines that the ADSL is carried on, then. Or will tbe bits arrive by magic through the ether?

      1. AndrueC Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: IPv6

        Or will tbe bits arrive by magic through the ether?

        Well - you've heard of Ethernet haven't you?

        :)

      2. billse10
        Joke

        Re: IPv6

        "Really? And who will pay for the lines that the ADSL is carried on, then. Or will tbe bits arrive by magic through the ether?"

        RFC 1149, or better still use RFC 2549 to add QoS ...

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          Re: IPv6

          RFC 1149, or better still use RFC 2549 to add QoS ...

          It's all right for you Londoners, megapigeons all over the place. Out here in the sticks I'd be lucky to get one pigeon a day, and I have to share that with my neighbour . When's the government going to get us a decent avian carrier rate for the whole country, eh?

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: IPv6

            "Out here in the sticks I'd be lucky to get one pigeon a day, and I have to share that with my neighbour"

            Maybe collared doves would be OK.

            Or pheasants? Don't just shoot the messenger, shoot it and eat it.

            1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
              Coat

              Re: IPv6

              Or pheasants? Don't just shoot the messenger, shoot it and eat it.

              Would only work for UDP though.

              Maybe we need to push for Feathers To The Home ?

        2. Yes Me Silver badge

          Re: RFC 1149/2549

          No, silly, you need RFC 6214 for IPv6

      3. batfastad

        Re: IPv6

        "Really? And who will pay for the lines that the ADSL is carried on, then. Or will tbe bits arrive by magic through the ether?"

        The same people who pay for health, education and welfare. Us, me, you. Having access to half-decent healthcare is a good thing. Having access to half-decent broadband is also a good thing IMO, a virtually unlimited source of learning and opportunities (ok so pr4wnz, t0rrentz etc come with it too, big deal).

        Line rental is usually higher than the cost of ADSL broadband these days. The only reason I have a landline is to get ADSL, it hasn't had a phone plugged in for 5+ years. Am I the only one? I would be this is a significant barrier for people on low/no income that could be sorted quite easily if the regulator had the balls to put the squeeze on the incumbent national telco.

        Chop a couple of nuclear subs from the offence budget or scrap the building of a 20% faster trainset to pay for it. Or flogging some unused Gov IPv4 address space, as hinted to the article.

        I am assuming that you give a fsck about people who are not as fortunate as yourself. I understand that this is often a false assumption.

        Nothing to do with IPv6 and for that I apologise.

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          Re: IPv6

          Line rental is usually higher than the cost of ADSL broadband these days.

          You're missing the point that ADSL broadband also requires the line. Even if you have no phone plugged in you still need that copper pair, so either you pay for it as part of the ADSL (price goes up to match) or you pay for it separately (two charges on bill, ADSL + line rental). The one thing you can't do is have the ADSL without the physical line. If that's what you prefer you'd need to go for 4G.

          I am assuming that you give a fsck about people who are not as fortunate as yourself. I understand that this is often a false assumption.

          An irrelevant one in this case.

          1. Joe Montana

            Re: IPv6

            Physical line yes, telephone service over that physical line no... Split that out too and let us choose not to have it. "line rental" currently covers not only the physical line.

          2. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: IPv6

            "You're missing the point that ADSL broadband also requires the line"

            Only to the DSLAM and certainly _not_ to provide dialtone.

            There's no technical reason that naked DSL isn't on offer and there's certainly no requirement that a copper pair go back to the exchange where street DSLAMs ("fibre cabinets") exist

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: IPv6

          " The only reason I have a landline is to get ADSL, it hasn't had a phone plugged in for 5+ years."

          The cost of the exchange parts that provide the phoneline is next to nothing. The exchanges are all at least 15 years old (the last 'new' exchanges were installed when the UK went fully digital to avoid Y2K upgrades on analogue exchanges in 1998) and I doubt it adds more than a pound to the line rental. You're paying for two things - the rental and maintenance of a pair of wires all the way to your home and then the provision of a data service running over the top with connectivity to the Internet. You can't have the latter without the former. Given that the wholesale rates for line rental are set by regulation and are based on the actual cost of provision, I'm not sure where that cost could 'disappear' to. Someone has to pay for it and it seems fairer that people who have broadband or phonelines do rather than taxpayers who may not have a landline at all.

          I buy DSL and other data services around the world every week. In some countries I can buy 'bare' DSL without a telephone service attached, but I still have to pay the line rental in one way or another and it doesn't make a difference to the price I pay. DSL can be slightly faster on a line with no phone service but that's about the only difference.

          Lots of people do avoid fixed line rental by using their mobile devices for Internet connectivity so that''s always an option.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: wholesale rates for line rental

            "the wholesale rates for line rental are set by regulation and are based on the actual cost of provision, I'm not sure where that cost could 'disappear' to."

            Careful here.

            At least in the UK, there's what punters pay for line rental, and there's what the regulator allows the wholesaler (BTo/BTw) to charge for line rental.

            Once upon a time, maybe a decade or more ago, there was only a little bit of a difference between the wholesale and retail line rentals. BT even used to claim they made a loss on line rental. Lots of BT revenue and profit came from BT's call charges.

            Then along came competitive carriers (famously including Mercury) to undercut BT call charges using exactly the same infrastructure.

            A few years later again there are still indirect providers around, offering call charges that make BT prices look real silly (how about ~5p per UK call for up to an hour?) but bundling by BT and explicit blocking by other retailers mean the indirects are an endangered species.

            At the same time, nowadays courtesy of Ofcon and a cartel of BT 'competitors', there is a huge margin (>>50%+ iirc?) between wholesale and retail line rental prices. Oddly enough retail line rental is mostly the same whichever big name retailer you pick, and there's not that much difference between their call charges.

            There's even more of a guaranteed profit margin if you take into account the near-compulsory call bundles from the big name retailers.

            But Ofcon don't see a problem, so it must be OK.

      4. Joe Montana

        Re: IPv6

        The ADSL service isn't free, and neither is the POTS service. Separate out the costs of physical line, POTS and ADSL and let users choose which of them they want. I have POTS service with ADSL but i never use it, never have anything connected to it and don't even know what the number is.

        1. AndrueC Silver badge
          Meh

          Re: IPv6

          Separate out the costs of physical line, POTS and ADSL and let users choose which of them they want

          That seems a very reasonable idea. Just so long as you know that not taking a POTS will prolly only save a pound a month and won't improve your xDSL service significantly (if it all - the ANFP might prevent BT from using voice frequencies for data).

          A pound saved is of course a pound saved..but I don't personally think it's worth getting all het up over. I have a corded phone plugged into one of my extensions because I know that if there's ever a power cut, if my mobile phone can't be charged or if my mobile mast/provider craps out I will always have a telephone that works.

    3. Joe Montana

      Re: IPv6

      Pretty easy actually, ipv6 will allocate a /64 block (or larger) to each customer, so any address within that range is assumed to be that customer...

      Tracking home user NAT with v4 works the same way, one ip - many physical users behind it but all assumed to be the same customer.

      Higher level NAT on the other hand is harder, you could have hundreds if not thousands of users behind the same ip, which becomes extremely problematic. The ISP now needs to log every single connection in order to track a user back, and third parties have to log both the source and destination ports in an attempt to correlate with the ISPs logs, and all of this requires that the ISP actually does logging and actually co-operates with you. If you've just running a small time service and you want to block abusive users, your pretty screwed and you have no choice but to block the entire isp.

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does anyone actually use IPv6

    I run training classes for one of the worlds largest IT businesses, I train a lot of their support people. I regularly ask my students if any of their customers use IPv6 and it's incredibly rare to hear of anyone using it internally inside businesses.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Does anyone actually use IPv6

      Yep, in use here.

      Use within companies is another aspect entirely: as long as they have enough private IPv4 addresses and the 10 blocks are pretty generous, there is little incentive but the more sensors and devices they have the urge to switch internal networks to IPv6 will grow. Another drive will be once they start routing more traffic in VPNs on public networks.

      1. Joe Montana

        Re: Does anyone actually use IPv6

        We use IPv6 at work, and VPN is one of the biggest reasons...

        Quite often our internal IPv4 space overlaps with that of customers, peoples home networks or things like public wifi, which can cause quite severe problems when your running VPN links.

    2. AndrueC Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Does anyone actually use IPv6

      it's incredibly rare to hear of anyone using it internally inside businesses.

      I can understand their reluctance. There's a lot of new knowledge to learn in order to ensure adequate security and correct configuration. I set mine up at home for the fun of it but if was doing that for a company I'd have struggled to get past the risk/cost assessment.

      For all that some people moan about NAT it's obvious that it works for most people most of the time and is largely invisible. I've never known it interfere with anything (I know it can but I've personally never encountered it) and port forwarding is simple enough to understand for the few of us that have to set up a server. You even get implicit protection from random external attacks since machines inside the network can't be targeted unless forwarded ports point to them.

      IPv6 is a brave (and welcome) new world but I for one would be very cautious about allowing IPv6 traffic to pass through a corporate router to/from the outside world.

      1. ZeroSum

        Re: Port-forwarding behind a CGNAT doesn't work

        ISPs like Liberty Global are forcing subscribers behind CGNATs that don't allow them to set-up port forwarding. Someone else might be using port 8080...

        1. Martin-73 Silver badge

          Re: Port-forwarding behind a CGNAT doesn't work

          In that case you simply sue them for breach of contract, walk away, and go to a decent ISP

          1. ZeroSum

            Re: Port-forwarding behind a CGNAT doesn't work

            > In that case you simply sue them for breach of contract, walk away, and go to a decent ISP

            Or, more likely, you complain a bit on-line, possibly get moved back to IPv4-only but stay with them because there isn't any alternative.

      2. ZeroSum

        Re: Does anyone actually use IPv6

        ISP residential Internet access, 3GPP mobile and mass market services like YouTube and Netflix is where all the IPv6 deployment effort should be concentrated.

        When there's a good base of people with more experience of IPv6 it can start going into enterprise. Enterprise is part of the tail.

        1. Roland6 Silver badge

          Re: Does anyone actually use IPv6

          When there's a good base of people with more experience of IPv6 it can start going into enterprise. Enterprise is part of the tail.

          No enterprise is where IPv6 has to go first, it is a much simpler environment and it is more controlled. Although in saying this, it is obvious that M2M and sensor networks are ideal candidates for IPv6, because these will be deployed by enterprises and hence many of the people working on them will be networking experts...

          With residential, it has to work out-of-the-box and be set up by normal people via a simple point-and-click wizard interface - with no networking expert to hand.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Does anyone actually use IPv6

        Most firewalls default to blocking inbound IPv6 connections that aren't associated with an already established outbound IPv6 connection, just like they already do with IPv4. So I don't understand how you think it would suddenly be less secure?

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. AndrueC Silver badge

            Re: Does anyone actually use IPv6

            Hmm. Looking at the manual for the D-Link it looks like it can be configured to block traffic if you want but might be disabled by default.

            There's also an interesting article here.

      4. Andy Davies

        Re: Does anyone actually use IPv6

        I for one would be very cautious about allowing IPv6 traffic to pass through a corporate router to/from the outside world.

        ... or a home router come to that!

    3. choleric

      Re: Does anyone actually use IPv6

      Apparently just over 5% of traffic to Google's sites comes in over IPv6.

  8. AndrueC Silver badge
    Unhappy

    ISPs need to take some blame. My previous ISP - IDNet - already had dual stack IPv6 deployed when I joined them in 2012(*). My current ISP - Plusnet - ran a beta programme over two years ago and have gone quiet about it.

    Router manufacturers also need a slap because I went through five domestic routers while on IDNet before I found one that supported dual-stack and was stable. A particular ding-bat to TP-Link for their amazing 'IPv6 Ready' WDR3600. It's ready in the sense that it supports the protocol but not in dual-stack mode. So sure, if you're happy that you never need to access IPv4 sites you're good to go :-/

    (*)I even had my mail server talking SMTP over IPv6 to Google once I'd faught through some odd(ish) technical issues. I still don't know what finally fixed it as I had rDNS set up and everything. I gave up with it at first after a late night with my domain provider's support. Then a month later I was bored so thought I'd investigate it again and lo! it just worked.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Routers are not the problem, it is end devices. How many smart TVs support IPv6?

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Beyond the router it hardly matters as long as the router or ISP has 6to4 solution. Most smart TVs are Linux-based so IPv6 isn't a problem; all the ones running Android (an increasing number) definitely do support IPv6.

      1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        .... currently typing this on an IP6 connected android device (as are all my others) but, of course, falling back to IP4 for sites such as The Reg!

  10. jabuzz

    Pushing IPv6 implementation is easy, new regulation prohibiting IPv4 CGNAT unless the provider also offers IPv6. Large fines for those not in complying.

    If you then find CGNAT on your IPv4 to be a problem you can switch to IPv6.

    Simples really.

    1. ZeroSum

      Even the softer approach of Ofcom asking the ISPs for updates every 3 months might be enough.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe they'll get enough money from a sale like this to be able to afford to renumber their existing networks, maybe not...one thing's for sure, it will be a huge IT project to handle the renumbering, and we all know how good government departments usually are at those :-)

  12. Alan J. Wylie

    Lock In

    1) Without fixed IP addresses that can be reached from the wider Internet (NAT'd addresses are effectively firewalled), IOT devices will need central servers, which allows the IOT manufacturers to charge for the service. Want to set your TV to record? No way to connect directly to it from your smartphone, you'll have to connect to a server and hope your TV also polls in time.

    2) It is currently impossible to start a new ISP or hosting provider in the UK. That's a nice (anti) competitive advantage for the incumbents.

  13. Alistair
    Coat

    IPV6 - adoption

    I've had a /64 for a long time - currently find it to be faster for certain communications -

    ISPs? quite a number over here support IPV6, but you'll have a *hell* of a time finding out about it, and the biggest make out that it doesn't exist. As for the corporate world;

    "Firewalls with IPV4 are hard enough to get right, IPV6 is swiss cheese to security"

    seems to be the common thread. Why I don't know since you can simply have a non-routed block inside your /64- you don't get an address from the routed portion of the /64 until your ruleset has been tested functionally, and you *don't* bridge except for the services and protocols you know you want to route. VLANs take on a somewhat new meaning but from my experiments its basically the same as in IPV4, just larger blocks to wrap one's head around.

    (*yes* I KNOW thats a somewhat simplistic view, but in reality routing and firewalls are routing and firewalls, the only thing that changes between ipv4 and ipv6 is the numbers, the real problem is that new shit is new shit and some folks don't like [learning] new shit.)

    1. AndrueC Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: IPV6 - adoption

      Why I don't know since you can simply have a non-routed block inside your /64- you don't get an address from the routed portion of the /64 until your ruleset has been tested functionally...

      Assuming you are using a suitably configurable router and/or know how to do that of course :)

      Trouble is a lot of SMEs are probably using domestic routers or have cheat sheets for their Cisco box rather than a Cisco trained staffer on the payroll. With IPv6 (at least for the various domestic routers I've tried) as soon as you enable IPv6 your machines all appear on the public side of the router and a good firewall becomes essential. Mind you I'd hope that it's impossible to buy an IPv6 capable router that doesn't have a reasonable firewall. Although mine (Billion 7800 I think) disables part of the firewall functionality if you use port forwarding.

  14. Brian Souder 1

    Equipment Lagging - Mandate the equipment

    I had looked into IPv6 when it was first introduced. I found a lot of equipment was lagging, and even manufacturers could not give answers on it. You are seeing it trumpeted more in Routers, but it was not clear if legacy IPv4 switches could pass the traffic for IPv6, how they would handle IPv6 - would it just drop it - could it convert it, etc. I think the lack of information and over all investment costs has slowed the adoption even here in the states. Places where I can slip the IPv6 enabled equipment in I do. So then you think hey - let me look into what is left to switch them over. Oh - no info on the switch (even on newer kit with Gigabit managed ports). Well - I don't want to be the one that breaks things. We will come back to it later on. I just looked through some of the SOHO switch manufacturers and you are starting to see more mention of IPv6 now. I would be inclined to try it at home. Plus I have found many times when you are having trouble with a Windows 7 or 8 box, and it is a strange networking issue, turning off IPv6 in the NIC seems to clear a lot of that up. Not saying there would be no issue if it were IPv6 only, but with an IPv4 network, it is the only choice. So you basically have a lot of equipment you would have to change for what an administrator would see as little or no benefit. Maybe if they regulated the equipment that is available in the UK (or whatever region) was required to have IPv6 full support, or it could no longer be sold. Give it an April 2014 date. They can then shuffle the older equipment to regions not enforcing it. But it would also change manufacturers mindset, hey - this needs to be in everything going forward. Lets clear the channel of IPv4 only equipment before we get left holding the bag.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Equipment Lagging - Mandate the equipment

      Unless you're talking about L3 switches with routing support, L2 switches operate at the Ethernet layer, they don't care if you're running IPv4, IPV6, or even IPX/SPX over it.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    As the pool of available IPv4 addresses runs dry.....

    not strictly true, the are millions and millions of free IP4 addresses, but the companies and governments that "own" them are hanging onto them for no good reason.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: As the pool of available IPv4 addresses runs dry.....

      I think that if CGNAT wasn't so widespread in Asia we probably would already have run out of addresses even if they could be easily transferred from one region to another (they can't).

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: As the pool of available IPv4 addresses runs dry.....

      "the are millions and millions of free IP4 addresses"

      And hundreds of millions of devices needing IP addresses.

      Freeing up a few /8s (there are only a few /8s in reality) would only stave off the inevitable for a few months.

      Yes, Ofcom might find some outfit dumber than rocks that's willing to pay over the odds for IPv4, but the reality is that those address ranges will be worthless in a few years.

  16. druck Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Cattle Prod

    It will take an Ofcom cattle prod to get ISPs like PlusNet even thinking about IPv6. Nothing achieved after 5 years of asking for TLS on POP3, so not much chance of them doing anything difficult, unless they are forced to by regulation.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  17. theOtherJT Silver badge

    I'm not really a networks person, but everyone I know that _is_ a networks person doesn't want to touch the IPv6 migration with a very long stick. I have a suspicion that no small part of this is that the people who are actually going to have to do the job are somewhat concerned what they're going to find themselves responsible for in the longer term once IPv6 rolls out and then things like copyright infringement notices start rolling in.

    It's not the technical migration, it's the legal wrangling that will inevitably follow and a giant game of "Not my monkey"

    1. ZeroSum

      They're not a real networks person if they're afraid of IPv6. They're probably a systems person that occasionally has to do a bit of networking.

      1. theOtherJT Silver badge

        Like I said, it's not the technical migration that worries them. It's what follows. There are procedures in place for what to do when someone rocks up with a takedown notice, or a "We have an IP, now hand over this customer's address" notice. Procedures they didn't write but are now well used to following.

        No one has any faith that once the technical bit of the migration is done the political bit will be ready, and no one wants to be the one that has to be standing between the lawyers and the servers when it's being worked out, because that person is going to have a pretty bad time.

        1. ZeroSum

          ISPs should not be handing over customer details for anything less than a court order. Change happens, people raising concerns like that are just blockers. Similar issues would arise with multiple layers of NAT.

    2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Trying to avoid IPv6 is very much a head-in-the sand moment. It's coming (not least because we will need those addresses) and the best thing to do is learn how to handle it as soon as possible and start making suggestions on how it should be improved.

  18. Donkey Molestor X

    are there any uTorrent users noticing that a LOT of their peers have IPv6 addresses? it's usually more than half for me. is there any technical or cultural reason for that? hell, I guess I'm part of it too because I got myself an HE 6to4 tunnel, set it up on my router, just so I could try for their free certificate.

    google is ipv6, fark is ipv6, i kind of wish El Reg was but all in good time, 4chan WAS all ipv6 through cloudflare but I heard it made bans harder. i think their CDN is still ipv6 though? need to check the IPvFoo extension again when I'm at home.

    1. Donkey Molestor X

      * hits self in head *

      d'oh, I see from several google search results it's to get around throttling. slowpoke.jpg goes here.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        * hits self in head *

        I see from several google search results it's to get around throttling.

        IPv6 needs some incentives like this to encourage people to make the effort and invest. Currently IPv6 is seen by many as one great big headache waiting to happen, hence avoid and address today's connectivity needs.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    May we assume BT's 21st Century Network (21CN)/Infinity doesn't support IPv6?

    1. Martin-73 Silver badge

      BT's own infinity offering may not, but FTTC would, as it's merely a carrier. A&A for example will do IPv6 over FTTC

    2. AndrueC Silver badge
      Boffin

      'Infinity' is not another name for 21CN. It's sad how successful BT have been in making people think that it is - a bit like a lot of people still talk about using their Hoover when in fact most of us have vacuum cleaners made by other manufacturers.

      Anyway to set the record straight: No, BT Infinity does not currently support IPv6. However Infinity is just a BT Retail product built using the BT Openreach FTTC infrastructure. The FTTC stuff is perfectly capable of carrying IPv6 traffic as it's basically just an Ethernet link(*). Several other ISPs offer IPv6 over FTTC (and indeed, over ADSL).

      AAISP, IDNet are two and I think there are a couple of others. Even Plusnet (a part of BT these days) has had a trial running for a couple of years now. There are also rumours that some of PN's newer gateways support IPv6 so a roll-out could be imminent.

      (*)Ignoring some fancy tunnelling behind the scenes.

  20. SMabille

    DWP

    DWP just burned another £600m in butched universal credit IT job, so let them sell their /8 to cover the cost, then respec the project for its 3rd or 4th reboot with IPv6 (and a delivery date of 2028).

    So Ian Ducan Smith could argue that he actually really saved money (from the IP sales), that the project is a stable ground for the future and will be delivered on time (2028 or anytime after Ian Duncan Smith political dead)

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