IPv6 support on Virgin media
Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?
Forum Discussion
Hi dgcarter,
As always when new products or services become available we will let customers know. At this time we have no plans scheduled in to use ipv6.
Paul, thanks for the reply. Given that we are (allegedly) due to run out of IPv4 addresses at any time between two weeks last thursday and 2012, how are virgin planning on coping?
Hi dgcarter,
When the time comes for IPv6 roll out we will let everybody know on what will happen. Until then we will be sticking with IPv4 as we have more than enough IP addresses in reserve.By using a router will eliminate most of the issues as this will assign just one ip address per household instead of one for every device connecting to the internet.
Hope this helps
Paul
While Virgin ignores their customer requests for IPv6, you can switch to ADSL2+ (BT landline) and get the best native IPv6 support in the UK with AAISP, www.AAISP.net.uk . It's been a few years that AAISP provides native IPv6. They also give you a block of static, public IPv4 addresses as standard, no extra charges. "Real Internet", as they call it. NAT is completely optional -- I strongly recommend against NAT, especially if you'd also like to try using SIP VoIP.
(I'm not in any way affiliated with AAISP, other than being one of their happy customers at work, where we get a clean 16Mbps with ADSL2+. At home I still have Virgin Media, but that's only because ADSL gives me at most 3Mbps, while Virgin gives me 10Mbps or more.)
Hello
When IPV6 is rolled out accross the whole of the Internet then a lot of the ISP's will roll out IPV6, over a local network I dont really see a need as currently with BT they still have to use a Gateway from IPV6 to IPV4 due to the majority of the infrastructure on the Internet isnt IPV6.
Mike
xbox one console need the support off it , when i go into my settings it states try an ipv6 connection
i think its about time you supported this
Just a quick comment about 6to4. It was/is a really useful tranition mechanism. As already pointed out a native IPv6 connection is preferable whether possible.
However there is one major limition. Because the tunnels are brittle, with no guarantee of latency or bandwidth, its generally considered to be less reliable than IPv4. Because of this the newer IPv6 compatible Operating Systems, with the exception of Mac OSx, will prefer a native IPv4 connection to a 6to4 connection. When connecting to an IPv6 only host, such as ipv6.google.com, this does not matter, as there is no IPv4 to fall back on. However a pure dual stack domain, such as heise.de, will result in a IPv4 connection.
Those with an interest in IPv6 may have heard about Googles whitelisting system. Unless your DNS servers are registered with Google, they will not serve you quad AAAA records (the IPv6 address records) for their domains (apart from the afore mention IPv6 specfic ones). The reason for this is 'brokeness' that they have observed for users who connect over IPv6. The majority of this brokeness appears to be due to 6to4.
So play with 6to4, but be aware of some of the limitations, and make a fuss demanding IPv6. Another telco in France, deployed 6rd, a tunnelled version of IPv6, and made it available to all their customers within 5 weeks. They had a advantage with the managed kit they provide to their subscribers, but you have to ask why Virgin are not able to do something similar, especially when you consider many of the routers they provide can be flash with open-wrt, and Comcast in the US's 6rd trial is using a modifed open-wrt for their 6rd.
i have now my first IPv6 only domain / web site muzinda active (just for testing) :)
IPv6 will at some point become a necessity, although Virgin may have IPv4 to spare this is not the case everywhere and sooner or later companies wanting to host things on the internet will simply be unable to get IPv4 space... And before this happens, v4 space will become extremely expensive.
Big players are finally starting to take notice of ipv6, google is available over v6, as is facebook, yahoo will be soon etc, and in the US the government is demanding that their suppliers support v6 and actually use it, so the likes of cisco, brocade etc now have ipv6 sites up...
In terms of home users, a small number of ADSL isps support v6, but the number of routers which support it is extremely limited... Virgin are actually far better placed in this regard, the traditional cable modems which simply bridge you can easily handle ipv6, and the new superhubs being shipped out also support v6 (i believe ipv6 is a requirement for docsis 3 certification)...
What would be good, is for virgin to at the very least start offering an ipv6 trial, i'm sure there are a fair few users, myself included, who would sign up and help test a v6 service.
Note that i'm not advocating removing ipv4 support, but i do believe ipv6 should always be offered alongside v4 these days. Sooner or later ipv6 will be essential and ipv4 a very expensive burden, so the sooner ipv6 is rolled out the better.
Well it is official now, no more IPv4 address, with the internet growing, we don't want to be left behind. Some of the big sites will be testing thier pages in IPv6, including google, facebook and yahoo.
If we want to keep up, the router firmware will need to be updated to support IPv6.
Any reply virgin?
Whilst we already have enough IPv4 address space for our current network needs, as part of ongoing network upgrades, we have been looking at making our network ready for IPv6 connectivity. There are many factors which need to be worked through to ensure a seamless experience for our customers but we anticipate we will progress with initial stages of IPv6 deployment at some point during 2012.
Thanks
Will we all be ok on World IPv6 day June 8th, 2011?
The only reason I ask is I cant load these sites:
Thanks,
David
Thanks alot for the replys, I gave kudos to those that helped.
I thought I would have been auto subscribed to the thread but thats not on as default, so changed the setting.
It seems my D-Link DIR-615 and Netgear WNR2000 doesn't support IPv6 anyway, but as people have said they can probably relase firmware updates.
IPv6 is new to me so this thread makes a good read :)
The D-link DIR-615 does have ipv6 support, although aparrently some revisions of the firmware are buggy.
Look at the datasheet for the dir-615:
ftp://ftp10.dlink.com/pdfs/products/DIR-615/DIR-615_ds.pdf
it even has an ipv6 ready logo at the bottom!
The netgear it seems does not by default, but you could install a third party firmware like dd-wrt or openwrt on it to get ipv6 support.
My D-Link looks different to that thou, it looks like this:
Mine says hardware verson D4. Unfortunatly my WNR200 is abit bust, it randomly reboots itself!
I created a tunnel here: http://tunnelbroker.net then copied the command to the command line and rebooted Win 7, but it doesnt seem to do anything. Anyone got some tips please?
Pretty sure WNR2000 is IPv6 compliant. I could access IPv6 sites when I had mine with no extra config.
- I just tried it and didnt seem to work :(
The problem with this long-lived thread is that it's in a Help & Support forum.
No VM product manager is going to be looking here to estimate interest in IPv6, no VM sales or marketting person is going to be reading this to tell the PMs that IPv6 would provide good advertising or PR, no VM tech will be looking here to gain support for VM leading on this technology in the UK, etc. Nobody who can influence IPv6 rollout in VM will ever see this thread. The support staff are undoubtedly far too busy doing support, and in a large organization like VM they're probably not even allowed to talk to the relevant people on our behalf.
The real question we should be asking is: Who do we contact to bring this matter to the fore?
It's not as if this were a feature for the distant future. IPv4 Zero Day occurred back in February and the last IPv4 blocks were allocated to the regions exactly as predicted. While IPv4 won't collapse immediately because of this, we do need IPv6 *right now* to move forward using dual stacks. Not having native IPv6 support in VM is already blocking progress. Tunnels just don't cut it.
Dear Support peeps, who in the appropriate divisions of VM can we contact to express our need?
Morgaine.
Some major isp's overseas have started playing with native ipv6, which does indicate VM are perhaps been a bit too slack on it, but on the main point I agree with ignition that its only very few people crrently putting time into ipv6. I have ipv6 ranges on some of my servers but they are not used for any type of production use only for testing at current.
Well "interest" is a chicken and egg thing. There is no interest from non-tech users when they can't get to IPv6 sites natively and transparently, and there is no interest from providers when they see no significant users with IPv6 access. In the absence of other factors, this would be a deadly embrace around IPv4.
But there is another factor, and it cannot be ignored: we're (almost) out of IPv4 addresses.
While some providers will attempt to put bandaid over bandaid to try to keep IPv4 alive beyond its sell-by date, this will be costlier and costlier as the solutions get ever more contrived, and it's ultimately pointless because the money could just as easily be put into dual-stack IPv6 to allow graceful evolution without horrible hacks.
Some smaller ISPs in the UK already provide native IPv6, but no top tier ISP here has done so yet. It would be good for VM to be a leader in this, and I think it's up to us to get the message through.
Morgaine.
If anyone doubts how important IPv6 is, well google, facebook and other large organisations think it's important!
They will all be taking part in World IPv6 Day http://isoc.org/wp/worldipv6day/participants/
If you are not IPv6 ready here are a few site you won't be able to visit:
Phil
Happy IPv6 day everyone. Here is to wishing I could actually participate but I can't because Virgin Media doesn't support IPv6 and doesn't seem in any rush to do so!
i am totally clueless when it comes to anything like this but the word proxy springs to mind.... ?
any ways round vms lack of IPv6 readyness?
I think its time Virgin Media implemented some form of IPv6 support to allow its users to at least access IPv6 sites and services. Shouldn't need to wait to run of out IPv4 or some far off event like that. Its a new technology that lots of people are switching too so Virgin should be able to keep.
Quick question regarding IPv6 - when the time comes, will it just be a case of VM rolling out a firmware update to Superhubs to enable IPv6 support?
If I was to hazard a guess, I would say that they would roll out dual stack firmware unless it is already in the R30 firmware and just not turned on,
I guess someone at Virginmedia would be able to confirm that.
If done properly the end users shouldn't really notice, of course security would have to be set-up differently as there is no NAT with IPv6, just routing.
Phil
r3loaded wrote:Quick question regarding IPv6 - when the time comes, will it just be a case of VM rolling out a firmware update to Superhubs to enable IPv6 support?
Assuming modem mode is what it is its done even if the router mode gets updated for IPv6 your LAN will need to be IPv6 to connect to non-mapped native IPv6 sites.
If IPv4 was 1-10 and IPv6 was 1-20 and a site is on 15 an IPv4 LAN can't get to it.
Theirs just no detailed diagram that shows how 4to6 works so I thought I have a go.
ftp://bridgemode.bounceme.net/IP%204to6.pngSo if the above is correct yes we can connect to native IPv6 sites with native IPv6 users able to connect directly back to us (if the routes processes IPv6) and still use IPv4 LAN but in order for all this to happen we have to be told a lie to where we've going and where its from by IPv4 to/from 192.88.99.1.
For real native IPv6 to work on a LAN your LAN must be IPv6.
Dual stack for us users of both IPv4 & native IPv6 when sites move off IPv4 to IPv6 that free up IPv4 is a needed thing to happen.
- I really hope they assign a /48 prefix per customer and not just one /64 . Or at least let a /48 prefix be requested
