back to article I need an ISP that offers IPv6. Virgin Media: Whatevs, nerd

Despite being the third-largest internet provider in the UK, Virgin Media is not exactly looking toward the future. As pretty much every ISP in the world recognizes, we have already effectively run out of IPv4 addresses and so finally need to move to, or at least offer, IPv6. Not so Virgin Media, which – despite owning 20 per …

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  1. David 132 Silver badge

    Similar story here with my ISP.

    I'm with Frontier in Oregon (DSL if that makes any difference). I enquired about support for IPv6 last week; their technical help desk referred me to the sales/marketing department, who... referred me to the technical department. All I got out of the exchange was that they don't support IPv6, and have no immediate plans to do so.

    Now, my need isn't pressing - it was more a case of "I should start playing around with this and stop being a future-fearing Luddite" - and Frontier are, in every other respect, a superb ISP, so I won't be dropping them over this. Still, it IS frustrating.

  2. Lee D Silver badge

    Virgin have a post for their forums for about the last three years with people asking for IPv6.

    They keep announcing it "next year" and then nothing materialises.

    And they announce it at trade forums and the like, not just a forum post.

    They have zero interest, even if you have a leased line, which is precisely Sixxs' reason for shutting down. While they are doing the job, ISP's don't have to.

    1. Richard 81

      That sounds like their approach to dealing with over-subscribed areas. They say they're going to review demand in three months. Then three months later they say it's been delayed and will be reviewed... in three months".

      1. eJ2095

        Ahh teh 3 month review

        I get a refund every 3 months off them for there sloowwww service

    2. TonyJ

      This seems to be a bizarre way that Virgin work.

      I popped my email into their "we will let you know when we are coming to your area" website as our estate was built after they initially ran their fibre so we lucked out.

      That was three years ago.

      18 months ago I got a "great news! we're coming to your area" email.

      SInce then...nothing. I asked them on Twitter and was told to register my interest on the same website.

      So "coming soon" seems to be their default operating model.

      1. Nifty Silver badge

        A flat I rent out. It has a VM box 4 metres away and of course I registered the whole block of 40 for cabling. That was years ago.

        But from time to time big bundles of Virgin Media flyers are still being dumped in the foyer.

        VM is a subscription marketing machine with an ISP tacked on the side.

    3. Adrian Jones

      SOP for Virgin

      Many years ago I had a Virgin phone line for dial-up. When it was installed I asked about broadband. Coming in 3 months, they said. I occasionally asked them again, for the three years I was at that house. Always the same answer.

      After moving house, I had them install a line in the new house. Again asked about broadband, again the same answer. After another three years of this, I found an ISP who could supply broadband for less than I was paying Virgin for dial-up. So I called to cancel my line.

      "But we're rolling out broadband in your area soon!" "When?" "In about three months!" I explained that I'd been told that for the last six years, and still didn't believe him. The line was cancelled.

      Three months later, I got a flyer through the door to say that Virgin broadband was available. It's a shame that the only honest answer got the cancellation. :)

    4. ZeroSum

      It is the engineers that keep announcing it but they must be being continually delayed by lack of support from the rest of the business.

  3. Bronek Kozicki

    If in the UK, I recommend

    AA ISP - they provide IPv6 and also have awesome support (I'm a customer)

    1. Number6

      Re: If in the UK, I recommend

      +1 for this. I switched to them when I wanted a decent IPv6 set-up some years ago, although then I left the country and had to cancel the service.

    2. John Sager

      Re: If in the UK, I recommend

      Likewise. I changed to A&A when the previous v6 support I had from Enternet broke and they never bothered to fix it. It was apparently something cobbled together for customers on BT's 20C network.

    3. Chris King

      Re: If in the UK, I recommend

      They also offer a L2TP service you can use over another ISP - £10 a month for 1Tb.

      Okay, so it's not unlimited, but it comes with a fixed IPv4 address and a block of IPv6.

      SIXXS may be shutting down, but Hurricane Electric still offer free IPv6 tunnels AND tutorials to get you up and running.

      1. PyLETS

        Hurricane Electric IP6 over IP4 tunnel broker

        Hurricane Electric have supported my IP6 tunnel to my VM broadband connected system and it's been very stable for years. However, on the few occasions when VM change my IP4 address I have to re-register my endpoint on HE's tunnel broker server. I guess I could probably figure out how to automate this if VM changed my IP4 address more frequently, but it may be a reason for me to drop all VM services.

        1. HeliosFA

          Re: Hurricane Electric IP6 over IP4 tunnel broker

          HE offer a Dynamic DNS type facility for updating your endpoint IP address - my PFsense firewalls (3x virgin lines) all use this client so no manually changing endpoint anytime one of them is down for a bit or has a DHCP change.

      2. gotes

        Re: If in the UK, I recommend

        I used HE until Zen offered native IPv6 support. It worked fine, plus you can manage your own PTR records if you want (which Zen don't offer).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: If in the UK, I recommend

          Zen do offer IPv6 PTR, it's just that you need to email them to ask for the records you want - there isn't a web interface for it yet. All the info is in their knowledge base documentation.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If in the UK, I recommend

      Zen Internet offer IPv6 on request which works very well. And they are not as pricey as AA. I am a customer of theirs.

      1. asjackson

        Re: If in the UK, I recommend

        I have a mobile SIM for my laptop with AA. Very handy and their service is great. If you are looking for someone cheaper for broadband (since AA is very expensive) I would recommend Zen. Been with them now for 6 months on FTTC and not a single regret. They are reasonably priced and reliable. They even gave me a /29 IPv4 block.

    5. AndrueC Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: If in the UK, I recommend

      IDNet have offered it for several years as well.

    6. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: If in the UK, I recommend

      Surely that should be AAAA? We are still talking about ipv6, no?

      1. ZeroSum

        Re: If in the UK, I recommend

        > Surely that should be AAAA? We are still talking about ipv6, no?

        No, he means A&A. They are an ISP in the UK for nerds that have supported IPv6 for years.

  4. Nate Amsden

    need? really?

    Hard to imagine there would be any services out there that would be IPv6 only.

    I would think ISPs will deploy carrier grade NAT before they deploy IPv6 to the end user, especially for existing customers, if a provider is doing a new buildout of something then perhaps I can see using IPv6, but it just introduces more complexity into the network since the provider has to provide IPv6 to IPv4 NAT anyway, what is the advantage to not just doing IPv4 NAT ?

    Some like to harp on oh how NAT breaks peer to peer etc, but it seems the world has been getting along just fine for a long time with it. I don't really do any peer to peer stuff myself, at least nothing that has an issue with NAT.

    If you need IPv6 so bad I'm sure there are other tunnel providers you can use, or rent a VPS or something somewhere. Myself I have a 1U server in a colo and I have my home cable connection VPN'd to it (IPv4 only- I turned down my ISP when they asked if I wanted IPv6 because I don't).

    Looks like Hurricane Electric still does free IPv6 tunnels (HE is who I am hosted with, though it's certainly not free).

    I've been running networks for nearly 20 years now and I have never, ever heard IPv6 come up in any conversations with regards to networking with the people/companies I have worked with/at. I have no doubt it is a factor at ultra large scale providers, but that's not what I deal with. IPv4 is scarce, but HTTP proxies and SNI for SSL go a long way for extending the life of IPs (organization I am with today has had the same /27 IP spaces (1 per data center) externally for 5 years and could probably go another 5 years without much issue).

    When the time comes to finally allow inbound IPv6 into the sites I manage the infrastructure for I will use NAT again - but at the CDN layer. Though honestly I may be retired from this profession by the time that happens.

    I checked my comcast cable link and that has a real IPv4, meanwhile my AT&T mobile phone is still behind CGNAT on a 10.x IP.

    1. Number6

      Re: need? really?

      My Comcast cable supports IPv6, and my T-Mobile phone also seems to manage it.

    2. Martin Summers Silver badge

      Re: need? really?

      Indeed. If the guy *needs* IPv6 one would have thought he'd have gone with an ISP that definitely supported it rather than putting his services through a third party freebie tunnel. He doesn't need to change ISP now, there are other tunnel providers including Hurricane Electric as you've pointed out.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: need

      I run an elitist technical forum that is ipv6 only to stop plebs from swamping it with noob questions.

      It also keeps out DMCA troll bots, and is unreachable to booters and the vast majority of botnet infected home users.

      Highly recommended.

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: need

        So, the first rule of IPv6 Club is that you don't talk about IPv6 Club?

        1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

          Re: need

          Whops..

      2. Martin Summers Silver badge

        Re: need

        "I run an elitist technical forum that is ipv6 only to stop plebs from swamping it with noob questions."

        Do you know what? I tried to find a problem with what you said but I can't fault your logic.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: need

          I can fault his logic.

          He posted about a technical forum in a technical forum without mentioning the name of the technical forum.

          Seems like a lost opportunity to me.

          Or maybe he's a hipster and this is one of those "if I told you, you wouldn't understand" situations.

          I for one would be interested in his site as Im sure others are. But if he doesnt want the patronage / ad revenue thats fine.

          1. IsJustabloke
            Coat

            Re: need

            "He posted about a technical forum in a technical forum without mentioning the name of the technical forum."

            El Reg commentards are the noobs he wants to keep out

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: need

              "El Reg commentards are the noobs he wants to keep out"

              Oi, not everyone here is a noob, some people are just thick, they have MS paperwork to prove it.

    4. JeevesMkII

      Re: need? really?

      That's not how it works.

      ISPs provide v6 and v4 in parallel allocating both a v4 address, for which the customer is generally obliged to supply NAT for themselves, as well as an IPv6 prefix so that the customer's computers can configure themselves with SLAAC if they haven't explicitly set up DHCPv6.

      All consumer operating systems are smart enough to send both AAAA and A requests when they do DNS lookups, so when I talk to google on my laptop here I get their v6 addresses, but when I talk the register (who still have no v6 configured, SHAME) I get the v4. v6 traffic goes out over the ADSL in v6 records, v4 goes out in v4 records and never the twain shall meet. The ISP provides no 6to4 gateway, and I'm pretty sure if I tried to ping IPv4 address in the IPv6, my ISP would just drop the packets.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: need? really?

      > I would think ISPs will deploy carrier grade NAT before they deploy IPv6 to the end user, especially for existing customers,

      Many ISPs already are doing CGN.

      > since the provider has to provide IPv6 to IPv4 NAT anyway, what is the advantage to not just doing IPv4 NAT ?

      No, they don't have to provide IPv6 to IPv4. ISPs are generally providing dual stack. This works well for ISPs that have to use CGN, as it takes load off their CGN infrastructure for those connections that use IPv6. Given that FB, Google, Netflix etc are all on IPv6, this is a good chunk of traffic that is the CGN infrastructure doesn't have to deal with. For ISPs in organizations that need to log CGN traffic, this is particularly useful.

      > I've been running networks for nearly 20 years now and I have never, ever heard IPv6 come up in any conversations with regards to networking with the people/companies I have worked with/at. I have no doubt it is a factor at ultra large scale providers, but that's not what I deal with.

      I too have been working in and around networks for around 20 years, and I have heard IPv6 come up in conversations many times. Those were not with ultra-scale providers. They were ISPs outside ARIN, that did not have vast legacy allocations. My point? Your experience is not universal. Nor is mine.

      > When the time comes to finally allow inbound IPv6 into the sites I manage the infrastructure for I will use NAT again - but at the CDN layer.

      If you're talking about commercial CDNs (Cloudflare, Cloudfront, Akamai, etc,) they're all using IPv6 already.

      > I checked my comcast cable link and that has a real IPv4

      Most (all?) Comcast cable connections have IPv6 available by default. Mine does.

      > meanwhile my AT&T mobile phone is still behind CGNAT on a 10.x IP.

      CGNAT range is 100.64.0.0/10. See RFC 6598. Your AT&T phone is probably also using IPv6. Most US carriers are.

      1. Chris King

        Re: need? really?

        "Many ISPs already are doing CGN".

        Virgin Media is considering it.

        Hyperoptic have already deployed it to customers because they're not in a position to offer IPv6 yet.

    6. streaky
      Mushroom

      Re: need? really?

      I would think ISPs will deploy carrier grade NAT before they deploy IPv6 to the end user, especially for existing customers

      No this isn't how it works. You deploy IPv6 and THEN CG-NAT for IPv4 traffic. What you're describing is the incompetent nonsense Hyperoptic pulled. People have been trying to hit them with a cluestick ever since they BROKE their network. If you just roll out CG-NAT without lubricant things get sore.

    7. Joe Montana

      Re: need? really?

      The world gets along with various kludges born of necessity...

      Not many things are peer to peer, most services are centralised these days which is very bad for privacy.

      Back in the days if you wanted to transfer a file to one of your IM contacts the file transfer would be sent directly to them (the im server would only handle text messages and directory services to keep bandwidth usage down), but now transfers are sent via the central service and get mangled (eg image quality is reduced, only limited filetypes are supported etc).

      Game servers are now generally centralised, in the days of quake anyone could run a local quake server and start playing... Now modern games usually connect to centralised game servers which means you'll have to stop playing multiplayer when the game publisher decides to shut off the servers, theres typically no lan games, and if you happen to be in a country which is far away from where the game servers are hosted then your gameplay will be laggy.

      Bittorrent and similar protocols can distribute data very efficiently, but depend on peers being able to connect directly to each other.

      The internet was always meant to be end to end addressable, NAT breaks that and adds unnecessary complexity and headaches, ipv6 just restores it to how it was always supposed to work.

    8. Yes Me Silver badge

      Re: need? really?

      "I would think ISPs will deploy carrier grade NAT before they deploy IPv6 to the end user, "

      You're behind reality. The ISPs that deployed CGN a few years ago are trying hard to put in solutions that cost them less money and less help desk grief. The favoured approach now is native IPv6 to the customer equipment plus 464XLAT to carry legacy IPv4 traffic over the native IPv6.

      - coming to you from the IETF v6operations meeting currently in progress in Chicago

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: need? really?

        The favoured approach now is native IPv6 to the customer equipment plus 464XLAT to carry legacy IPv4 traffic over the native IPv6.

        Sounds like either a return to or reconfirmation of Plan A: create an IPv6 backbone and carry encapsulated IPv4 traffic over it. Made sense back in the 1990's, makes even more sense now given the massive increase in consumer usage of the Internet.

        1. streaky
          Flame

          Re: need? really?

          Sounds like either a return to or reconfirmation of Plan A: create an IPv6 backbone and carry encapsulated IPv4 traffic over it. Made sense back in the 1990's, makes even more sense now given the massive increase in consumer usage of the Internet.

          It's not a return or reconfirmation, nothing has changed this is how it's done - the problem is there's a lot of ISPs who have as far as I can tell been badly advised by either vendors or consultants with regards to digging them out of the mess they caused themselves by not investing in IPv6 years ago.

          There's no reason for any ISP to be using CG-NAT on its own. There's also conversely no reason to deploy pure IPv6 solutions to customers. Give people private IPv4 addresses AND public IPv6 assignments. CG-NAT the IPv4 requests (there's other ways to deal with this but given companies have wasted cash on GC-NAT gear this is probably easiest for them).

          This is all very easy, and they've gone out their way to make it hard.

          It's most egregious with Hyperoptic (I keep bringing them up because they're my ISP and I'm familiar with the damage they've done to their reputation despite otherwise being a great network and having a lot of goodwill shoved their way - the things they could have done with the money govt gave to BT) - because they're a new network with new gear and they should have had an IPv6 plan from day 0. Surely they would have seen they were going to have IPv4 availability problems. What did these people think was going to happen? Somebody would lift up the sofa cushion and find a few /8's they could have?

          1. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: need? really?

            because they're a new network with new gear and they should have had an IPv6 plan from day 0. Surely they would have seen they were going to have IPv4 availability problems. What did these people think was going to happen?

            Agree, however having, some years back now, looked at delivering fibre broadband to my rural neighbourhood, I can see how IPv6 can get pushed to the back burner and forgotten about, what with all the other stuff going on with getting a business going.

            I suspect the big issue is that the 464XLAT client (CLAT) really needs to sit in the consumer DSL modem/Router and this would represent an additional expense (not aware of consumer grade DSL modem/Router with inbuilt CLAT functionality - but maybe El Reg readers will enlighten me). Certainly putting the client in the router makes deployment very simple: residential user joins ISP, gets sent new CLAT enabled router.

            For many ISP's that basically repackage BT Wholesale broadband (ie. don't have their own LLU etc.), the viability of this is dependent on BT Wholesale making IPv6 services available. However, this shouldn't be the case for Virgin, who have their own Local Loop infrastructure.

            It will be interesting to see what a newly 'independent' BT/OR does because, who determines the availability of IPv6: BT Wholesale or BT/OR?

    9. MR J

      Re: need? really?

      I know this topic is a couple of weeks old, but your post is the exact reason why IPv6 is not getting deployed.

      Morons are in charge.

      "I would think ISPs will deploy carrier grade NAT before they deploy IPv6 to the end user"

      That statement right there shows that you lack understanding that the user cant reach the web services running on IPv6.

      CGNat does nothing to help users gain access to IPv6 ONLY services that exist on the internet.

      CGNat ONLY allows a ISP to use a IPv4 addy between users... Virgin Media have said the same idiotic statement that you said.

    10. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: need? really?

      Hard to imagine there would be any services out there that would be IPv6 only.

      The biggest plus for home users, as far as I can see, is that if you want to run servers from your home network, then going ipv4 means that you need a static ipv4 address which costs more. If you have native ipv6 and a reasonable amount of tech knowledge you can partition your network and transition from an ipv4-style DMZ into the equivalent ipv6 version. So, all those family-shared photos can go straight to your secure ftp/webdav server instead of Facebook or other cloud servers.

      I'm pretty sure that a big factor in ISPs not supporting ipv6 is that they realise that it means that they won't be able to charge extra for static IPs. That, and not wanting to spend money on staff training.

  5. Number6

    Obligatory note that El Reg still only seems to be IPv4.

    1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

      In their defence, they did get around to offering ssl by default after a few years complaining about everyone else not offering it.

      They'll get there.

      Eventually.

    2. Marco Fontani
      Trollface

      Re: Smartphone app

      El Reg still only seems to be IPv4

      If you're that sharp-eyed, I'm sure you'll have noticed that the images domain, regmedia.co.uk, is available over IPv6 ;)

      IPv6 will be coming to ElReg in the not-too-distant future (read: soon®)… likely as soon as I get a new, "shiny round tuit" to do the deployment of it as painlessly as possible. We've had a Git branch for it since ~2015 or so… but it's not ready yet. When it is, you'll notice.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Smartphone app

        "IPv6 will be coming to ElReg in the not-too-distant future (read: soon®)… likely as soon as I get a new, "shiny round tuit" to do the deployment of it as painlessly as possible. We've had a Git branch for it since ~2015 or so… but it's not ready yet. When it is, you'll notice."

        A better goal would be to deploy it and not have people notice. It should just work.

        Glad to hear it's coming 'soon', though.

        1. Marco Fontani

          Re: Smartphone app

          A better goal would be to deploy it and not have people notice. It should just work.

          Precisely why I wrote he will notice. Not "everybody" ;)

  6. Norman Nescio Silver badge

    Hyperoptic is IPv6 free too :-(

    Just like Virgin, Hyperoptic have been less than rigidly adhering to announced roll-outs.

    2011: announced "will likely release IPv6 addresses in the new year"

    "We originally intended to roll out IPv6 along with IPv4 in our initial phase but found that there would be few benefits to customers and would require the implementation of immature technologies into the network. We are testing our IPv6 solution along with our partners and will likely release IPv6 addresses in the new year. " < http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/11_UK_ISP_Hyperoptic_Interview/01.php >

    2013: Hyperoptic scoops ‘Best Superfast Broadband’ accolade at 2013 ISPA Awards

    "...assessment by a panel of leading industry experts around such facets as price and value for money, time from order to delivery, IPv6 capability, customer service and technical support. "

    Twitter announcements that it was coming 'soon' started in 2014.

    2016: Needless to say, no IPv6, but they have deployed Carrier Grade NAT, simultaneously removing what were free IPv4 static IPs, breaking my site-to-site VPN connections in the process.

    < http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/09/uk-isp-hyperoptic-scraps-static-ip-shared-cgnat-internet-addresses.html >

    So, a new(ish) ISP, offering FTTP, still not offering IPv6.

    Great, isn't it?

  7. Bucky 2

    Some consider it insecure

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/18/net_boffin_ipv6_needs_hardening_against_fragmentation_attacks/

    If Virgin read pieces like the above, it may have concluded that it would be better to let other folks shake out the problems first, rather than expose themselves to lawsuits. If people could prove that Virgin knew or should have known about potential trouble, they could be out big bucks.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Some consider it insecure

      Well given yesterday's announcement: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/28/congress_approves_sale_of_internet_histories/

      I suggest that if IPv6 can't protect the privacy of an endpoint and all of its communications from man-in-the-middle snooping, it is behind the times, and certainly falls short of the requirements of a modern Internet and the demands of military grade comm's...

      Also I know I can't specific such potentially useful options as: do not route via the US, Russia or China...

      Roll on Internet 2.0!

  8. Cian Duffy

    Odd response when their Irish operation has been pushing many people on to DS-Lite recently and basically has v6 available to nearly everyone already...

  9. Franco

    Virgin have always been behind the curve. About 10 years ago they were still dishing out dynamic IPs to business customers and wouldn't issue statics under any circumstances. Apparently they had never heard of mail servers being blacklisted for such things. And then a few years ago when they started issuing the "Superhub" routers they shipped them with VPN passthrough disabled and couldn't understand why business customers wanted the setting changed.

  10. Defiant

    Non Story

    They're not interested because they've got plenty of ipv4, the ipv6 was really to help with the 3rd world growth

    1. talk_is_cheap

      Re: Non Story

      Note true, they have removed the option for new customers to have 5 static IP addresses with their business service (for an extra £5 a month).

      All in all their service while fast has never be configured to offer a high level of service to business users.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Non Story

      I think its got more to do with the fact that the don't want to invest and would prefer to profit gouge for as long as they can get away with it.

      If you're still with these assholes, I suggest you switch, and let market forces take care of them.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Curious, if they adopt ipv6 will that be nat or would all the devices on my network get unique ipv6 addresses and bypass the firewall?

    It doesn't affect me because I would set my separate router to do nat anyway but what about everyone else? IoT devices with unique ipv6 addresses would be madness.

    1. Nanashi

      Why are people still posting this? Why are people still upvoting it??

      It'll probably be with a /56-/60, which should be enough address space to avoid NAT. They're unlikely to do NAT on their managed CPEs. This is fine and not mad. It's not a problem for your IoT stuff to have a globally unique address; the important question is whether or not random people can connect to it, and you don't need NAT to stop that from happening.

      VM doing v6 won't suddenly render it possible to connect to any of your devices without your permission. Inbound connections will still be blocked by default.

    2. Dwarf

      Curious, if they adopt ipv6 will that be nat or would all the devices on my network get unique ipv6 addresses and bypass the firewall?

      It doesn't affect me because I would set my separate router to do nat anyway but what about everyone else? IoT devices with unique ipv6 addresses would be madness.

      Currently on your IPv4 network every device gets a unique address, so IPv6 is no different, other than there can also be secondary addresses that are internet routable in addition to the local ones (starting with fe80::/16)

      Everything works the same on IPv6 as it does on IPv4 in regard to things like routing and firewalls. If you have a firewall and use it to filter traffic, then you can do the same on IPv6 as you do today. Its exactly the same solution to exactly the same problem. Obviously for as long as you dual-stack, you need to do the firewall config on both IPv4 and IPv6 independently, but this is hardly a difficult thing to do as all the principles still remain the same.

      As to allowing device access to things like IoT widgets, that's your choice. NAT is not a security mechanism, it never was and never will be. You can NAT on IPv6 if you must, but there is absolutely no need to do so. Why add another layer of translation that just consumes memory on the router, takes time to process and limits your options for end-to-end connectivity where you want it ? You can do all separation you need with just the firewall, just like you used to before NAT arrived with its attempts to conserve IPv4 addresses.

      The silly thing with IPv6 is that there are so many false observations from those who don't know - who state how hard it is and how badly broken things are, but nobody seems to look objectively at the current situation and ask WHY is it done like this in IPv4 and then realise that actually there is a heck of a lot that is the same between the two protocols. Generally, those things that are different have been done for a reason - generally very good reasons.

    3. dajames

      Curious, if they adopt ipv6 will that be nat or would all the devices on my network get unique ipv6 addresses and bypass the firewall?

      It's a good question, but it has been asked a lot of times before.

      Normally, if you have only IPv4 equipment you won't get any IPv6 traffic, so there's no need to worry about firewalling.

      If you are connecting to an IPv6-enabled ISP, you must have equipment that can 'speak' IPv6. Any half-decent IPv6 router (say) is going to contain an IPv6 firewall, and in its default state is going to refuse any external connection unless you configure the firewall to let it through.

      So, no, nothing is going to "bypass" the firewall; IPv6 traffic should have its own firewall. IPv6 connections will not be seen by the IPv4 firewall -- and if you currently have a dedicated firewall that only speaks IPv4 you're going to have to upgrade it when you switch to IPv6.

      If, however, you use a system that tunnels IPv6 traffic through an IPv4 network, then the IPv6 traffic will pass through the IPv4 firewall unchecked (so long as the firewall is configured to allow the tunnel). This should come as no surprise -- you need to add an IPv6 firewall to be safe.

      This last point is one of the reasons that it is better to have native IPv6 support from the ISP rather than relying on some tunnelling scheme: You don't have to worry about firewalling the tunnel if there isn't one.

      IoT devices with unique ipv6 addresses would be madness.

      Making IoT devices visible on the internet-at-large is madness however you address them. IPv6 doesn't change that, it just means that the devices you do want to make publicly visible can have individual, unique, addresses, rather than having to be addressed through some complicated port-forwarding scheme.

    4. Ptol

      If you think NAT protects your network, then I am sorry to break the news that NAT alone is little more than closing your front door without locking it when you go on holiday for 2 weeks sun.

      Firewalls blocking packets provide protection whether you are ip6 or ip4.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Firewalls blocking packets provide protection whether you are ip6 or ip4.

        Obviously not thought about NAT/PAT much then as otherwise you would know that NAT/PAT has a natural firewall property: no inbound rule then traffic dropped/blocked.

        Putting aside the address/port translation, the key difference between a NAT/PAT device and a PIX firewall is that a NAT/PAT device will out-of-the-box automatically open outbound ports for all outbound traffic and allow inbound traffic on a port opened by a local device making an outbound connection. With a PIX firewall, rules have to be specified for it to do anything other than permit access to it's management port.

        So I suggest a NAT/PAT device is more like a front door with an auto-closer: when closed you need to know the right keycode, however, if you happen to arrive when someone is leaving, you stand a chance of slipping in before the door closes.

        1. HeliosFA

          > Obviously not thought about NAT/PAT much then as otherwise you would know that NAT/PAT has a natural firewall property: no inbound rule then traffic dropped/blocked.

          No, on its own NAT does not drop or block anything. If you are on the external subnet and know the internal subnet of your "target" network, you can set up a route to send traffic to the target network's internal subnet by the router's external interface and it will get through and responses can come back. This is simple routing and at the end of the day, that is what you have if you have something with NAT but no firewall - a router with extra functionality. It is the firewall that drops/blocks traffic that does not match its rules.

          > "Putting aside the address/port translation, the key difference between a NAT/PAT device and a PIX firewall is that a NAT/PAT device will out-of-the-box automatically open outbound ports for all outbound traffic and allow inbound traffic on a port opened by a local device making an outbound connection. With a PIX firewall, rules have to be specified for it to do anything other than permit access to it's management port."

          Firstly, relying on out of the box functionality is bad. Secondly, it is the firewall configured with appropriate rules that controls the traffic - all you are doing in NAT is setting up inbound port mapping rules. The firewall on most NAT routers from ISPs is, funnily enough, IPTables which is what you would use for IPv6 firewalling on Linux essentially. Thirdly, any modern stateful firewall can be setup to permit all outbound and only allow inbound that is already established/related (in fact this is the default behaviour for most firewalls you install). This is irrespective of whether it is an IPv4 or IPv6 firewall.

          Fundamentally, you are confusing NAT and firewalling - they are NOT the same thing and NAT is NOT a security feature.

          1. Roland6 Silver badge
            Pint

            @HeliosFA - I think there is a risk we are getting caught up in academic debate.

            on its own NAT does not drop or block anything. If you are on the external subnet and know the internal subnet of your "target" network, you can set up a route to send traffic to the target network's internal subnet by the router's external interface

            Strictly NAT is simply a lookup table, the trouble is once you start to consider the population of that table and the management of entries, you're straight into router and firewall behaviours.

            So, for example, you may know that my laptop is on 192.168.1.184 behind a router with a public IP address, however, without an entry in my external router's NAT table and an associated forwarding rule you won't be able to establish a route because my NAT service will return a null IP address, resulting in packet discard, although I agree it will be the firewall or router that actually does the packet discard.

            >Firstly, relying on out of the box functionality is bad.

            Whilst I agree, I used this example as good PIX firewalls tend (well in recent years) to be 'secure' out-of-the-box and I was thinking more along the lines of domestic usage, where the typical householder will simply take the ISP DSL modem/router/firewall out-of-the-box and plug it in. In mentioning PIX, I was also trying to avoid venturing into stateful firewalls with varying degrees of deep packet inspection.

            >NAT is NOT a security feature.

            Hum... "all you are doing in NAT is setting up inbound port mapping rules."

            So if a port is not mapped/mapped to null by NAT, it's not a security feature, but having a firewall rule for the same port that closes/maps to null is...

            As I noted, once you start to pull things apart it gets less clear-cut, due to the functional overlap/duplication, which in some respects is why the functions generally get combined into a single box...

            So I suggest whilst NAT may not be a security feature, it is a feature that can assist security.

            1. Nanashi

              however, without an entry in my external router's NAT table and an associated forwarding rule you won't be able to establish a route because my NAT service will return a null IP address, resulting in packet discard, although I agree it will be the firewall or router that actually does the packet discard.

              This is not quite how it normally works... if a packet comes in with dest addr <your router WAN address>, and there's no corresponding connection in the state table, then all that happens is that the dest address is left alone. It's not rewritten to 0.0.0.0. The packet will just be treated as if it was sent to the router itself (which is, after all, exactly where it was sent). It may in fact then get dropped or refused, but it could also just as well connect to a service running on the router.

              That behavior is the same regardless of what the dest address in the packet is; if there's no corresponding entry in the NAT table then it just leaves the address alone and processes the packet as if you had no NAT configured. It might get dropped by a firewall if there is one, but it could also get routed onwards (possibly even back to the ISP).

              You could perhaps make an implementation that behaved the way you describe, but it would be rather unusual and I'm not aware of one that does. Certainly netfilter doesn't work like that.

              1. Roland6 Silver badge

                @Nanashi - You are right the router is both an intermediate system and an end system. My comment was only really considering the case of an external system trying to get a packet through the router (ie. the router/intermediate system to pass a packet from the external interface to the internal LAN) and have it delivered to an end system on the LAN, when NAT is enabled on this path.

    5. ZeroSum

      > Curious, if they adopt ipv6 will that be nat or would all the devices on my network get unique ipv6 addresses and bypass the firewall?

      All devices on your network can assign themselves an IPv6 address from the /64 prefix announced by the router. The ISP router is likely to have an IPv6 stateful firewall that is on by default.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Non Story

    Really, if you know how to read, then ipv6 is a breeze to set up locally on VM. I do hope VM do NOT rollout IPv6 for as long as possible as there are absolute advantages to this situation that will be blown soon after the can is opened. To the ones that jump ship, great, we don't need your naivety and foot stomping nonsense. So ... please, shut up "The Register" you are about to ruin things with your lack of streets.

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: Non Story

      ""The Register" you are about to ruin things with your lack of streets."

      The Reg is a town or city, or something like that?

      I'm confused.

  13. J. R. Hartley

    Am I the only one...

    That actually prefers IPv4 and NAT rather than the madness of IPv6?

    1. Dwarf

      Re: Am I the only one...

      "Preferring" IPv4 doesn't fix the shortage of addresses, it just says you are comfortable with what you learned years ago. Its like that old pair of slippers or the old chair - it might be nice and may have been comfy, but you can guarantee that the new ones work just as well once you get used to them.

      Why do you think IPv6 is "madness" - is it just that you don't understand it or are you worried to learn something new ?

      IPv6 is actually very logical when you look at how it works and what it fixes in its predecessors shortcomings.

      1. Tim Brown 1

        Re: Am I the only one...

        IPv6 is badly designed and thought out. It could have been made backwards compatible with IPv4 which would have ensured a smooth and orderly adoption but the 'designers' thought they could do 'better' with the result that it has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the world and twenty years on it's still ignored by many.

        See https://cr.yp.to/djbdns/ipv6mess.html for a detailed analysis of how the IPv6 designers got it so horribly wrong.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Am I the only one...

          Virgin Media reportedly said:

          it depended on the "wider adoption of websites"

          I think what they mean is: it's a waste of time for them to deploy IPv6 now when the vast majority of content doesn't allow access over IPv6 anyway.

          Even big, respected and technically-savvy media organisations like the BBC aren't doing it. Why not? Probably because content on IPv4 is already available to 100% of their user base. So it's a waste of their time too.

          IPv4-only content is visible to everyone. IPv4+IPv6 content is visible to everyone. So which option is simpler, cheaper and more reliable to set up and run? More importantly, where's the business case for making content available over IPv6?

          In addition, VM are saying: if they wait a year or two (or more), the kit they use will have been better debugged and there will be fewer support complaints. Meanwhile, nobody in their right mind is going to be creating IPv6-only content - i.e. nobody who cares about their content being visible to the Internet as a whole. It's all going to be either IPv4 or IPv4+IPv6.

          I'm not saying we shouldn't move to IPv6, and I'd be delighted if my home ISP (PlusNet) offered it. I'm just trying to explain the genuine business reasons why so many aren't doing so.

          1. hazzamon

            Re: Am I the only one...

            The BBC are in fact working to deploy IPv6: http://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/ipv6/2016/08/31/ipv6-council-meeting-october-2016/

        2. HeliosFA

          Re: Am I the only one...

          > It could have been made backwards compatible with IPv4 which would have ensured a smooth and orderly adoption

          No it couldn't, well not any more than it is. IPv4 has a fixed address size of 32-bits and an overly complex header with a maximum size. Anything to ensure "compatibility" would be a change that in some way and you would end up sending malformed packets to any device that did not know how to understand the compatibility stuff. I don't think manufacturers are going to go and issue updates for all their old devices.

          With IPv6 and how it has been deployed so far in a dual-stack setup, legacy IPv4 devices can remain and still operate without issue as they will never see IPv6 traffic.

      2. Stese

        Re: Am I the only one...

        I don't understand why IPv6 has to break perfectly good functionality that exists in IPv4. Does NAT actually break something within IPv6?

        What is wrong with having single device, with a single address that is addressed from the net, and have that handle the translation between that and the LAN???

        I understand we are running out of IPv4 address space, but IPV6 seems to exist only to force people to learn something new, and for vendors and trainers to make a mint out of it.

        The very idea of EVERY device needing an address that (theoretically) can be accessed from outside also seems rather dangerous. 'Home' devices are often riddled with security holes, so imagine the situation where a SME user has a basic device, which isn't set up correctly by the ISP/manufacturer, and thus exposes each and every device to the wider net... at least with IPv4 and NAT they have some protection for their LAN devices...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Am I the only one...

          Two downvotes and no answer.

          One publicly visible IP per device seems to me to be leaking private information. Anyone care to tell me why I'm wrong?

          1. Dwarf

            Re: Am I the only one...

            An IP address in its self is not private and doesn't "leak" any information - at least no more than an IPv4 address does, its just a public endpoint address like your postal address is.

            As to "leaking private information" this implies that the application on the device is badly written or poorly secured, which has nothing to do with the IP stack, so this is irrelevant to which version of IP your machine is using.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Am I the only one...

              So can I access a website from three different devices using IPv6 without informing them that I have at least three different devices capable of accessing their website?

              1. Dwarf

                Re: Am I the only one...

                So can I access a website from three different devices using IPv6 without informing them that I have at least three different devices capable of accessing their website?

                So you think that each machine doesn't give a unique fingerprint to the internet today on your beloved IPv4 ?

                I suggest you go and read up about cookies and more specifically tracking cookies, user-agent HTTP headers amongst others. Here's a link of typical tracking methods (around 15) that are in use today.

                Most of these tracking methods generally only apply to HTTP/HTTPS traffic and not all the protocols supported over IP, but once again, IPv6 doesn't change any of this - other than giving you the option of default on end-to-end encryption without having to encapsulate again (i.e. an improved protocol efficiency over the former IPv4's capabilities.)

                Yet again we have a false assertion about the problem being IPv6 ... anyone notice the trend here..

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Am I the only one...

                  Assume I know how to obfuscate the tracking details you reference, Dwarf.

                  Here is a link which includes an example of the benefits of shared Dynamic IP in weakening tracking methods. Per-device Static IP OTOH negates all efforts to not be tracked.

                  When an ISP offers shared dynamic IPv6, not swapping between a few thousand static IPs, I'll make the leap. Anybody?

                  1. Dwarf

                    Re: Am I the only one...

                    Assume I know how to obfuscate the tracking details you reference, Dwarf.

                    No, I look at it a bit differently and take other precautions - like not visiting dodgy sites in the first place.

                    Apart from that I'm not delusional about what each technology layer does and which bits are good, bad or past their sell by date..

          2. ZeroSum

            Re: Am I the only one...

            > One publicly visible IP per device seems to me to be leaking private information. Anyone care to tell me why I'm wrong?

            The devices now assign themselves temporary randomly generated addresses from the /64 prefix announced by the router which remains the same. That /64 prefix is analogous to the single public IPv4 address most ISPs assign which the CPE uses to NAT.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Am I the only one...

              And can you change the /64 prefix like most ISPs allow you to do with the single IPV4 address?

              It's a bloody hard question to get a straight answer to.

              1. hazzamon

                Re: Am I the only one...

                BT's and Sky's IPv6 deployments deploy /56 subnets to customers, and these are dynamic/sticky. So with the first allocation, you've got 256 /64s to play with, and you can instruct your router to request a new DHCPv6 lease from the ISP, so a brand new /56.

              2. ZeroSum

                Re: Am I the only one...

                > And can you change the /64 prefix like most ISPs allow you to do with the single IPV4 address?

                > It's a bloody hard question to get a straight answer to.

                The /64 for the LAN comes from the DHCPv6 delegated prefix assigned by the ISP. Most ISPs assign the delegated prefix dynamically from a pool instead of assigning it statically. Unless the ISP has configured dynamic leases to be sticky the DHCP server will forget the lease when the lease period expires or immediately if the DHCPv6 client sends a RELEASE.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Am I the only one...

      No!

      For many things in industry it makes perfect sense, especially when nothing goes out of the building.

    3. Daggerchild Silver badge

      Re: Am I the only one...

      If you never need to open a connection to another NAT user, and don't mind your connections silently disappearing because a NAT table got bored or filled, or you never throw enough UDP to make it meltdown, then sure.

      Most home user's NAT stuff is cheap crap and the above is a pervasive affliction.

  14. jonfr

    I got the same answre from my ISP

    I got almost the exactly the same answer from my ISP (Stofa, DK). It is only when their IPv4 addresses start to run out that they might start to consider that option. That might *never happen*, short of programs just removing IPv4 support or limiting it to local IPv4 address.

    I suspect that in this case its more about greed (somewhat) rather than anything else. Since they do charge money for the static IP addresses when people ask for them. With IPv6 that is impossible to do.

  15. jon6
    Gimp

    My tweet was mentioned...

    I'm one of the paying customers who tweeted their ISP Virgin Media. Paying them ~£400 a year as an ISP and overall over £1100 [Phone, TV and Internet], I will take my business elsewhere, when it is convenient to me and assuming Virgin still have no IPv6 on the table.

    Virgin slightly retraced their steps, and said their plans aren't public, but their still way behind the others...

    SixXS was a project and service, and part of their recent campaign and closure 'sunset' is around challenging users ISPs to provide IPv6 native, and without the need for tunnels.... I was doing just that, so coverage here is good :)

    Last time I checked about tunnelbroker.net/HE you need a static IP, which is another area Virgin Media fail at. It also means you need to have a Router or Firewall that isn't the Virgin Media one, so either you double NAT, a seperate IPv6 router which tunnels over IPv4, or turn the lovely SuperHub into a Modem and thus disable over half the device.

    I've got IPv6 via a tunnel to a Virtual Machine/Server, but that facility costs - thankfully I'm getting good usage in a few areas from that.

    The tunnel method are trade-offs in terms of performance and ability to reach services; there are CDNs for things like Google and Netflix deployed on ISP networks that you miss as those services are on IPv6. Also Netflix had started to pick up on the SiXXS registered space, as a way that could be used to view content out of region and thus crippled access [thus my ISP not offering IPv6 was impacting my service]

    -- Need

    I'm a home worker in an IT job, we are rolling out services over IPv6 and want to be able to test those, just as a member of the public might use them.

    Working in IT, I want to be skilled in this area and hence running SixXS/IPv6 for ~6 years. That's the same length of time at least that my ISP hasn't been fulfilling one of my requirements as a customer, why should I not be vocal and complain?

    It's my choice to be an eltist and a nerd. I don't run any IPv6 only forums, and I'm happy to suffer n00bs, not involved in anything the DMCA would give a damn about! A few Anonymous Cowards maybe plebs, but that's their choice, the first rule of the IPv6 club is you try to get more people in the IPv6 club!

    -- Misconceptions

    There are lots of misconceptions about IPv6, if you don't want IPv6 yourself, then I would hope that either your ISP will give you the option in the router or you can cripple your devices and turn off IPv6. Meanwhile, us elitists will be building IPv6 only networks with NAT64/DNS64 (to give IPv4 via a proxy) just for you!

    The view of a few that IPv6 is not a requirement for them are in a bubble where they only need IPv4 currently... I'd rather be ahead of the curve than behind it...

    On the subject El Reg - where's your IPv6 enabled website? - our company are with Cloudflare and have it, so hurry up and turn it on.. get your AAAA records into DNS!

    1. John70

      Re: My tweet was mentioned...

      "turn the lovely SuperHub into a Modem and thus disable over half the device"

      I did that the day they changed my old modem into a SuperHub. I prefer my own gear over ISP given "stuff". Less problems.

    2. Christopher Slater-Walker

      Re: My tweet was mentioned...

      You do not need a static IPv4 address in order to use Hurricane Electric's tunnel service. Before my BT Infinity got IPv6, I was using HE. They have a way for you to tell them your non-static IP address. I'm sure you can find it on their web site.

      On another note, BT, to their infinite shame, do not do static IPv6, either for domestic or business customers. I got that from one of their techies. You get a nice /56 delegated prefix, but if your line goes down, when it comes up again, you've got a different prefix. Stupid.

    3. outnumbered

      Re: My tweet was mentioned...

      FWIW... HE doesn't need a static IPv4 address, works fine with dynamic, including a REST API to update your endpoint address.

      1. jon6

        Re: My tweet was mentioned...

        Thanks Christopher Slater-Walker and outnumbered.

        tunnelbroker.net/HE sounds like something to investigate now they've got dynamic IP support.

        I fear two of my points maybe linked - https://forums.he.net/index.php?topic=1994.0

        >> Last time I checked about tunnelbroker.net/HE you need a static IP

        >> running SixXS/IPv6 for ~6 years

        As in not checked since signing up with SixXS 6 years ago :)

      2. ZeroSum

        Re: My tweet was mentioned...

        > FWIW... HE doesn't need a static IPv4 address, works fine with dynamic, including a REST API to update your endpoint address.

        Good thing too. If tunnel services required a static IPv4 to set-up an IPv6 tunnel it would be partially counter productive to the goal of increasing IPv6 deployment. Many ISPs get revenue for charging for static IPv4 addresses so they have an incentive to thwart the deployment of IPv6 as it will eventually remove the need for IPv4. Since IPv6 is in plentiful supply it will be harder for ISPs to justify charging for static IPv6.

  16. Alan Sharkey

    I'm Ok with IPV4 for now

    I have a decent home network NAT'ed to my single IPv4 external address. Why would I need IPV6? What will it bring me?

    Alan

    1. jason 7

      Re: I'm Ok with IPV4 for now

      An IPV6 address that's really hard to remember.

      1. PyLETS

        An IPV6 address that's really hard to remember.

        How many IPV4 addresses (or phone numbers for that matter) do you remember ? That's what DNS was invented for - so you don't have to remember IP addresses.

        1. jason 7

          Re: An IPV6 address that's really hard to remember.

          "How many IPV4 addresses (or phone numbers for that matter) do you remember ? That's what DNS was invented for - so you don't have to remember IP addresses."

          You don't do a lot of IT do you?

      2. David 132 Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: I'm Ok with IPV4 for now

        jason 7 An IPV6 address that's really hard to remember.

        Yeah there's a definite similarity with something else...

        IPv4: "Call 999"

        IPv6: "The new emergency number"

    2. PyLETS

      Re: I'm Ok with IPV4 for now

      "Why would I need IPV6? What will it bring me?"

      The ability to address and talk to the half of the planet which doesn't yet have Internet at all in any form ? So I was happy with my short 1960ies style telephone number - what did adding extra digits give me ?

      That's the most obvious benefit. Not having to talk through proprietary cloud servers due to loss of end to end connectivity with Carrier Grade NAT at both ends between which a connection could usefully be made is the next compromise best avoided, and not having to pay a price to rent an IPV4 address in a market shortage so you can run your own cloud server is a further compromise best avoided, otherwise required to save a limited addressing scheme gone smelly due to being way past its use by date.

  17. rh587

    Although Virgin's two main competitors – BT and Sky – have gone all-in on IPv6 and now virtually every customer can use the protocol

    Bit of a stretch.

    BT Business customers are still waiting, as are residential customers with anything that isn't their latest greatest SmartHub - although granted that puts them far ahead of Virgin.

  18. Rob Crawford

    Considering

    their tech support claimed that you can't use the 5GHz channels unless you are using Apple devices as it is specifically for Apples use.

    My new network kit arrived about 90 minutes later (10 days early) and surprisingly enough within an hour of arriving home my VM router was in modem mode and Meraki kit has been doing everything else.

    So the prospect of IP V6 arriving doesn't really strike me as something that is likely to arrive until somebody actually forces them (and then their 'tech support' staff will deny it's existence unless you are using Apple devices.

    1. David 132 Silver badge

      Re: Considering

      @Rob Crawford their tech support claimed that you can't use the 5GHz channels unless you are using Apple devices as it is specifically for Apples use.

      What the blithering F? There is so much wrong with this. My head hurts. Did you have trouble keeping a straight face as they were telling you this??

      1. Rob Crawford

        Re: Considering

        I had more difficulty not shouting at him to be honest, though according to other office denizens I was very close to failure.

        That was noticed when I started suggesting that my current certifications actually may mean that I know a little about Wi-Fi <sigh>

        Still it entertained everybody else.

  19. Wolfclaw

    Never mind IPv6, let VM sort out stable connections, a working mail system and over subscription, before they try the technical stuff !

    1. ZeroSum

      > Never mind IPv6, let VM sort out stable connections, a working mail system and over subscription, before they try the technical stuff !

      If they focused more on techical stuff then they wouldn't have so many technical problems.

  20. AndrueC Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Plusnet doesn't either, and they are a pretty big ISP (and owned by BT of course). They ran a trial for a few years but it ended late last year when the last of the (old) gateways that supported it were decommissioned.

    The only hope is that their new network can support IPv6 but they are running an internal shake-down or trial. If the new network can't support it..words fail me.

  21. simpfeld

    Mobile Networks

    Not just home ISP's are slow on this one. Do any of the mobile networks offer IPv6 ? I think maybe EE? But the two I've checked Vodafone and Three don't (and as always for mobile operators are Carrier Grade NAT).

    I did work on IPv6 for home use. Once you get used to the notation, the longer addresses. Get your head around that a machine is very likely now to have multiple addresses: a GUA (global i.e. Internet routable address), a ULA address (routable but equivalent of the 192. or 10. private addresses for internal use) and the Link-Local address (for use on a single network segment). Use ULA for all your internal comms (and get internal IPv6 DNS of these ULA's running for sanity). Most services seem to work fine.

    Just complicated by my ISP doing dynamic IPv6 addressing, with the huge address space it offers looks a bit petty.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mandated next year, everyone to have IPV6 courtsey UK.Stasi May

    A spy's, advertiser's and big data's wet dream.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LOL 11 downvotes. awesome, that goes to show how many people know diddly pop about this issue.

    That's fine, I was never a sheep so I didn't expect less, but read on down voters, you are missing the wider picture, go do some reading, set up HE IPv6, then do some testing -- try to access sites that you couldn't before - all without the additional cost of VPNs/Proxies etc. Then come back and upvote this comment when you realise what I've said is correct.

    For the person who asked, "Streets" basically means street sense.

    Instead of bitching about the best ISP in the country, back them, for if you didn't have them - I can tell you BT would never try to better themselves, and their tech is a crap in any case.

  24. julian_n

    When will people learn. Whether it is -media, -mobile, -money or -trains anything that begins with "Virgin" is going to leave you disappointed in the customer service department.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just get a HE tunnel and stop winging.

This topic is closed for new posts.

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