IPv6 support on Virgin media

[dgcarter]

Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?

[Anonymous]

i know. no one will ever need more then /64. you can run a isp with /64 block

[Dagger]

Please... no. In IPv6 you don't count "number of addresses", but "number of subnets (/64s)", and allocating one (or less than one) is ridiculously stingy.

I don't think you guys have quite got your heads around just how much bigger 2^128 is compared to 2^32. In particular, there are 5000 /48s per person on the planet, just in 2000::/3. Each one of those /48s can service 65k networks, and the number of computers on each of those networks will be limited by factors other than the 2^64 addresses available for it.

At 5000 per person on the planet, I do not believe we will run out of /48s, even if we allocate one to each ISP customer. However, even if we do, note that that's just out of 2000::/3 -- there are an additional five /3 blocks available, so even if we do somehow run out we can adjust our allocation policies and start over in 4000::/3. Allocating /48s today is not going to be a problem tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

and then ipv6 was set up everyone that needed a ip could of had 10000's

[legacy1]

340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 IPv6
4,294,967,296 IPv4

18,446,744,073,709,551,616 for a /64
Times
4,294,967,296
=
79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336

340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456
take
79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336
=
So it fits in that big number if everyone had a /64 but really do you need that many like /96 is the size of the IPv4 now how many more IP's do you want?.

[Dagger]

It's not about the number of IPs. It's about the number of subnets, where "a subnet" is a /64.

You can make all the arguments you want about 2^64 IPs per subnet being excessive, and you'll be correct. But since it's not about the number of IPs, it doesn't matter. IPv6 is, by design, all about being excessive. It's too vast to be counting individual IPs.

(I'm not quite sure where you were going with that calculation, by the way. Maybe you were trying to get the number of /64s available, in which case it's 2^61 inside 2000::/3, or 330 million per person on the planet. Do you really think that's insufficient?)

[legacy1]

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@Dagger wrote:

(I'm not quite sure where you were going with that calculation, by the way. Maybe you were trying to get the number of /64s available, in which case it's 2^61 inside 2000::/3, or 330 million per person on the planet. Do you really think that's insufficient?)

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I'm saying fine VM can give us a /64 but will they? Or will they just do what they did with IPv4 just one IPv4 & one IPv6 or a random set range of IPv6.

And will we still be able to use modem mode or will VM force us back to NAT router mode because that would be unacceptable.

[karen_cookson]

 

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legacy1 wrote:

I'm saying fine VM can give us a /64 but will they? Or will they just do what they did with IPv4 just one IPv4 & one IPv6 or a random set range of IPv6.

And will we still be able to use modem mode or will VM force us back to NAT router mode because that would be unacceptable.

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NAT is not possible with IPv6.  Therefore it wouldn't be possible to give one IPv6 address per connection or people with more than one device would complain.  They might give a single /64 (1 host subnet).

On the 4-Feb-2011 Virgin Media were allocated 2a02:8800::/24

That is a very large block of IPv6 addresses.

If Virgin gave all of that out, which they won't since they will reserve some for internal network, TV, businesses etc.  Then they could give out

16,777,216 /48's (16 mil)

or 4,294,967,296 /56's  (4 bn)

or 68,719,476,736 /60's (68 bn)

Giving out a /56 would give each person 256 block of /64's (subnets)

Giving out a /60 would give each person 16 block of /64's which would be more than enough for more than 99% of people

[legacy1]

I don't think thats true....what is the reason why a native local IPv6 to native WAN IPv6 not possible? I think its just that IPv6 eliminates the need for NAT thats all. But the idea is likely what the hub will do which is a IPv4 LAN with one IPv4 WAN NAT and allows unique native IPv6 to each device that supports IPv6 but still allowing this to be done in modem mode to a device that may do the same or just gets a IPv4 and IPv6 address.

[Dagger]

It's not true. IPv6 NAT is just as possible as IPv4 NAT; it's just relatively pointless. (There may be some cases where it can be useful, but "I don't have enough addresses for my LAN" isn't one of them (nor is "I need security").)

I'm hoping Virgin go the DHCPv6-PD route, in which case we'll get a subnet of some size routed to us. If so we'll be able to issue the DHCPv6-PD requests from our own hardware, and won't need the SuperHub to do it for us.

[legacy1]

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@Dagger wrote:

I'm hoping Virgin go the DHCPv6-PD route, in which case we'll get a subnet of some size routed to us. If so we'll be able to issue the DHCPv6-PD requests from our own hardware, and won't need the SuperHub to do it for us.

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But we will still need the SuperHub for DOCSIS its if we can still use it in modem mode with are own hardware that we need to know.