IPv6 support on Virgin media

[dgcarter]

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

[Morgaine]

@philjohn writes:

> "According to a news item on ISPReview.co.uk ..."

Good find, thanks!  I guess you mean this one:  "Some Background on Virgin Media’s UK IPv6 and DOCSIS 3.1 Plans" -- https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/02/update-virgin-medias-uk-ipv6-docsis-3-1-plans.html

> "... VM are doing the brain dead thing and going with DS-Lite."

Oh dear, that's not good.  I hope they've budgeted for massive support costs and non-stop truckloads of aspirin. 😞

That said, there is still a tiny light at the end of the tunnel, in fact two of them:

1. That implementation of DS-Lite may not be the standard stateless one, but might instead be a stateful solution which reserves recently used public IPv4 addresses for a period.  During that reservation period it could assign that reserved public IPv4 address only if commanded to do so because the MAC address of the user's router was recognized in the access network.  This would preserve some compatibility with Virgin's current implementation and, most importantly, it would not break TCP connections by changing the user's IPv4 address on every hiccup in the access network.  (Yes, I know that this invites a comment of "And pigs will fly first", but it is at least a possibility, however remote.)
2. If DS-Lite turns Virgin's IPv4 into a total disaster, it could accelerate IPv6 adoption massively because the standard advice for any problem will become "Turn off your IPv4".  Unfortunately for VM, this will also lose them countless customers to BT and other ISPs who provide the better-behaved Dual Stack method over VDSL.  If so, Virgin will deserve their big fall in earnings by having ignored all user advice and making an ill-considered technical choice.

It'll be very unfortunate if ISPreview's information is accurate, particularly for gamers who are reliant on IPv4, but at least we'll finally get IPv6.

Morgaine.

[ravenstar68]

Reading the Ispreview article I noted the following 

* Provides dual-stack to users without requiring any public IPv4 address to be assigned to the CPE, thus streamlining the deployment and management of IPv4.

Which indeed suggests they are going for the CGNAT option.

@ModTeam  I have to express my extreme displeasure at this idea.  You are going to have A LOT of unhappy customers

[philjohn]

There's some confusion here - but to clear it up, DS-Lite is built upon the use of CGNAT[1], because the core network becomes IPV6, with IPV4 encapsulated over IPV6 and terminated on the ISP equipment, where it's passed out onto the IPV4 internet using NAT.

So, not only do you have all the problems that CGNAT introduce, you also have the issue that VM will probably do what they do for business customers wanting a static address and route all IPV4 via London, so we'll be getting increased latency added to the mix.

Out of all the options they chose the 2nd worst (worst is no IPV6). Come on, BT have been successfully running a full-fat dual stack network for 2 years at this point, it's a solved problem.

I wonder how much money Liberty will be getting for selling their IPV4 allocations ...

[1] - https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6333

[Anonymous]

Yep. To deploy DS-Lite at this stage in the IPv6 migration seems daft. Plonking a CGN machine between users and a significant percentage of their IPv4 based content seems crazy. The recent focus on getting speeds up across the VM network will go backwards. Many of the big content providers CDNs are still doggedly IPv4 (e.g. BBC) so a lot of traffic is going to be going through those CGN boxes.

As a technology DS-Lite seems more suited for the end-game when the majority of the content providers (by traffic) have moved to IPv6 and the IPv4 Internet is headed for the graveyard.

It may be a daft question to ask at this point but what to the big US cable providers like Comcast do? The US transition to IPv6 is a lot further on than ours.

[philjohn]

You don't even need to look to the US, there are cable companies owned by LG in europe and they are a mix of no IPV6, DS-Lite and full fat Dual Stack.

And closer to home, BT have been running a proper dual stack network for several years.

To be honest, I'd prefer until we're further along the transition that VM ran a 6-in-4 tunnel.

[cje85]

---

@philjohnwrote:

You don't even need to look to the US, there are cable companies owned by LG in europe and they are a mix of no IPV6, DS-Lite and full fat Dual Stack.

And closer to home, BT have been running a proper dual stack network for several years.

---

and Sky, who are running Dual Stack and completed their IPv6 rollout over a year ago. They're the only major UK ISP to have the vast majority of customers on IPv6.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/09/uk-isp-sky-broadband-officially-finish-roll-ipv6.html

VM don't do themselves any favours with terrible decisions like this.

[philjohn]

It makes sense once you figure out that the purpose of VM is NOT to provide a top-drawer service, but just one that is "good enough" to keep churn down to a reasonable level and let LG milk as much profit off the top as possible.

[Anonymous]

The reason for asking about what Comcast et al are doing in the US is because Liberty Global own VM and they are a US company. Also, to the best of my knowledge the biggest cable networks in the world are in the US. Big things tend to win fights. Therefore whatever Comcast is doing is going to drive the technology direction of the cable industry. What BT and Sky are doing is largely irrelevant to a multi-national like Liberty Global.

[cje85]

Comcast started rolling out IPv6 back in 2011, using dual stack

https://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-activates-first-users-with-ipv6-native-dual-sta...

[ravenstar68]

It should be noted that Comcast actually started by trialling DS-Lite.  The fact that they ended up moving to a Dual stack solution with both public IPv6 and IPv4 addresses should speak volumes.

@griffin @horseman, I'd welcome your thoughts on this.

Tim