IPv6 support on Virgin media
Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?
Forum Discussion
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.
You guys are crazy if you think that Virgin dont have any plans for IPv6, they are an ISP and will die if they dont support it. Maybe they just dont want to communicate it with the customers since the vast majority of their customers wont give a rats ass about it.
IPv4 will be around for a few more years yet, we still have loads of address which can be reused.
The majority of customers have no idea what IPv6 is because they're not technical, so nobody can expect them to voice any interest, neither we nor VirginMedia. For that matter, those customers don't know what IPv4 is either. This is all just "the Internet" for them, or worse, they think it's all the Web. :-)
But we know what IPv6 is, and VM's techies know, and I expect that the company probably *does* want to communicate with customers when it's feasible. After all, a company that doesn't listen to its customers is likely to be heading for trouble in due course.
In any event, there is no harm in asking Support to put us in contact with whoever might want to hear us on this issue. The worse that can happen is that Support refuses because they're not allowed to give us contact details.
What I fear more though is that they'll say "We'll pass it on up", but the message goes absolutely nowhere because of "Constipated Large Company Syndrome", which I've come across all too often as a contractor. (Workforce partitioned into functionally specialized divisions that don't interact except through their division heads, and those heads never rock the boat by pushing the envelope because it limits their promotion prospects.)
Anyway, we can but hope.
But you're right, VM either heads to IPv6 *fast* or its business will be gasping for air before long. IPv4 addresses have run out, and you can't continue to expand an ISP business without address space.
Morgaine.
