IPv6 support on Virgin media
Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?
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The forum popped up one of those Customer Survey boxes that we get here from time to time, and after the recent completely uninformative "response" that we received from Virgin staff, I thought to myself, "Aha, the perfect time to provide customer survey feedback about the lack of IPv6". Well, 5 attempts later, I now realize that their survey techies can't even handle plain text in an input box, so I might as well post it here as part of the community thread instead: [contains no personal info]
It is 2021, almost a decade since the World IPv6 Day in 2011 and the World IPv6 Launch day in the following year, yet you still do not provide up-to-date networking, only IPv4.
Alone among the three major UK ISPs, Virgin Media has completely ignored the requests of its technically knowledgeable customers for IPv6, expressed in both its community forum and in customer surveys like this one.
This is a total failure by Virgin to keep up with modern IP provisioning, and post-Brexit, it is also a failure that harms our ability to compete with the EU and to be a leader in networking.
In past surveys, the value I assigned for "Would you recommend Virgin Media to others?" was less than 50% owing to lack of IPv6. Well perhaps VM is lucky that their survey crashed 5 times, because this time I was intending to assign a mark of zero.I think my main feeling is one of sadness, sadness that a major UK ISP can be so out of date in networking technology, so self-centered that it rejects informed dialogue with its community, so hostile to its customers' requirements that it thinks silence is an adequate response, and so uncaring of the future of the UK in worldwide networking. As a company, Virgin Media doesn't meet even the most basic requirements of professional quality management.
Fortunately we won't be stuck with Virgin's incompetence as an ISP for long. Starlink is already serving beta customers in the UK, and will offer IPv6 upon release (it's already working in beta). And other competing services are coming as well.
Morgaine.ha! I've complained about ipv6 in a dozen or more of those feedback things over years. never got the impression it makes any difference sadly..
Would it be shocking if they only read the ones where people give it all 5's and say "I Love the fact that we don't have IPv6"? Then giving those to senior managers and saying "See, Community Support!".
I wouldn't.
Hi dgcarter,
Thank you for getting in touch. I'm afraid we don't have any information we can share regarding the implementation of IPv6 on our network at the moment.
We’re in the process of finalising our plans for IPv6 deployment and will provide an update at the appropriate time.
Thanks,
Rachael
Rachael_F wrote:Hi dgcarter,
Thank you for getting in touch. I'm afraid we don't have any information we can share regarding the implementation of IPv6 on our network at the moment.
We’re in the process of finalising our plans for IPv6 deployment and will provide an update at the appropriate time.
Thanks,
Rachael
Thank you for replying.
Rachael_F wrote:Hi dgcarter,
Thank you for getting in touch. I'm afraid we don't have any information we can share regarding the implementation of IPv6 on our network at the moment.
We’re in the process of finalising our plans for IPv6 deployment and will provide an update at the appropriate time.
Thanks,
Rachael
Nice....
Support have caught up to 27th of March 2010....
I think some of the people using the same quote 20 years ago, "We will ~ Update", but have since left the business.
Ah well, Couldn't help it Rachel - thanks for replying to him ;P..
My old WRT54G (v1) handles IPv6... 20 years old and it has IPv6 Support and can still handle VM's "FIBRE" Upload without issues. Cant do much else, will check the 13 year old forum now and see if there's a new firmware for it.. who knows ;P....
- well done everyone on pouncing on a virgin forum member for daring to give a response/update on a thread.
they really can't win - lambasted for not commenting, and lambasted for commenting.
some of you guys should seriously have a word with yourselves, and maybe retire your keyboard warrior personas.
if what rachel posted remains the current status of IPv6 support then what else do you want them to say?
Rachael_F wrote:Hi dgcarter,
Thank you for getting in touch. I'm afraid we don't have any information we can share regarding the implementation of IPv6 on our network at the moment.
We’re in the process of finalising our plans for IPv6 deployment and will provide an update at the appropriate time.
Thanks,
Rachael
Rachel,
it's interesting that you should use the phrase "in the process of finalising our plans for IPv6 deployment and will provide an update at the appropriate time" because those were the exact words used in this article from early August 2020, so there's been at least five months to finalise plans..
indeed in mid 2017 a virgin media spokeman said: “Virgin Media intends to start the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 later this year in line with the wider adoption of IPv6 across the internet. This deployment will be seamless to customers.”
I'm interested to know how long you need to finalise these plans, and whether VM has a date in mind for sharing these plans with us?
Many thanks
As much as I would like to see IP 6 deployed, VM is highly unlikely to implement it in the current climate. You only have to look at how well customer services is managing, think of the extra overhead of an IP 6 implementation.
Their response includes the statement "We’re in the process of finalising our plans for IPv6 deployment" which is promising."
Really, "promising" ?! Haven't they been promising IPv6 for, um, ten years or so now? And, weasel-words wise, those plans that are being "finalised" could be: "to sit on their hands for another ten years"...!
Yea, I can imagine them in the meeting.
"Should we use this internet 6 thing?"
"I hear it's 1000 times bigger than the internet 4 thing!"
"Wow, sounds great, let's tell people we will do it, and since it's 1000 times larger we can delay deployment for 10 or 20 years, they will never know our internet is not that big."
"Ok, good job guys, let's file for our bonuses now since we are going to be 1000 times bigger."
"Done, meet again in 12 months so we can talk more."
No good way to write, 2^96, so I used 1000.
No good way to write, 2^96, ....
How about: 79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336 ?
Mark at ISP Review asked for an update on the tunnelling issue and was told they're still working on it.
Their response includes the statement "We’re in the process of finalising our plans for IPv6 deployment" which is promising. We'll see how long that process takes.
thelem wrote:Mark at ISP Review asked for an update on the tunnelling issue and was told they're still working on it.
Their response includes the statement "We’re in the process of finalising our plans for IPv6 deployment" which is promising.
Were you expecting them to say: "We are an incompetent bunch, sorry but this will never be fixed, or IPv6 ever implemented, stay with us!".? VM Spokesman is getting their salary not for telling the truth, but getting out of such questions with less reputational damages.
They could have replied to say they don't have an update at this time.
The question was about 6in4 tunneling, so they didn't even need to mention full IPv6 rollout.
Maybe kind of encouraging; let us see...
Here's my situation as of this morning:
IPV4 196 Mb/s
IPV6 72.5 Mb/s
I've only just set the tunnel up so I can't compare it with previous days.
72.5 is pretty good by current standards,
What tunnel provider and endpoint?
What kind of VM modem/router do you have?
Are you running it in modem mode?
I'm in Edinburgh, with a superhub 2 running in modem mode. The router is a Netgear 3700 running Openwrt and the HE tunnel is set up on that, connecting to the London endpoint on 216.66.88.98
Excuse my ignorance in all this, but if I remember correctly VM Ireland has a lot of requests to be put on IPv4 only, and I think the main driver is for gaming.
Now if this is correct and VM UK move to DS-Lite, can VM still advertise as "great for gaming" ?
Adduxi wrote:Excuse my ignorance in all this, but if I remember correctly VM Ireland has a lot of requests to be put on IPv4 only, and I think the main driver is for gaming.
Now if this is correct and VM UK move to DS-Lite, can VM still advertise as "great for gaming" ?
Latency is the key to gaming, so xDSL tends to be better.
Users who need to host end to end connections over different ISP's might need IPv4 to connect, but that's due to other ISP users not having v6. For those users who "need" their own IPv4 then Dual-Stack is the actual product they should get. I too "need" IPv4 because of my SIP phones, but that doesn't mean I don't want IPv6 to roll out. There are two issues at play, the lack of deployment of IPv6 and CGNAT, but they are lobbed together as a single problem and VM seem unwilling to roll it out. If they really want to roll out CGNAT then they should run a large test area, the complains they get back would likely show them why it's a horrible idea. Sadly they would likely view that as a failure for IPv6 deployment and not a failure of CGNAT.
Looks like Virgin are finally looking into the IPv6 tunnelling issues:
It is a very good point. I wondered the same, because good luck having that NAT type as Open under DS Lite with IPv4 being a CG-NAT gateway. Most games are all IPv4 only so modem mode is going to be only solution there.
Even though VM did loads of marketing around being for gamers, the latency issues will have made people wary and staying away.
- VM is generally regarded as not great for gaming.
DSL remains the preferred choice for serious gamers.
The UK IPv6 Council tweeted a link to an interesting presentation from Google: https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/interim-2020-v6ops-01/slides/slides-interim-2020-v6ops-01-sessa-the-day-i-broke-all-the-treadmills-google-ipv6-only-deployment-00
To summarise: They have successfully switched the guest wifi networks in most of their offices to IPv6-only! There is a self-service way to opt-in to dual stack, but fewer than 15% of users have taken that option, meaning 85% are using IPv6 only.
I wonder if this approach could finally give ISPs an incentive to move to IPv6. The biggest reason to switch is the lack of IPv4 addresses, but adding v6 support doesn't immediately help that. Either you go dual stack, which needs the same number of v4 addresses as v4-only, or you go DS-Lite, which is just the same as CG-NAT on a v4-only network.
If it's actually practical for a significant proportion of users to switch to v6-only then that would hugely relieve the pressure on v4 addresses. They could sell off a bunch to pay for the network upgrade, and still have plenty to give out to anyone who asks for one.
thelem wrote:I wonder if this approach could finally give ISPs an incentive to move to IPv6. The biggest reason to switch is the lack of IPv4 addresses, but adding v6 support doesn't immediately help that. Either you go dual stack, which needs the same number of v4 addresses as v4-only, or you go DS-Lite, which is just the same as CG-NAT on a v4-only network.
Stop saying that, IPv4 address pool is not a reason, IPv6 and IPv4 are incompatible, by adding IPv6 you won't solve IPv4 address shortage issue, you will do CG-NAT for v4, you can do JUST NAT for v4 without even adding IPv6, most of the users won't notice, most of the mobile providers do that for years (even never had white IPs for clients), and people do not complain that their phone behind NAT. IPv6 solves NAT issues! a lot of things would be much simpler and cheaper if they use IPv6 only, but because of companies like VM, the engineers have jump over hoops to make their product work for IPv4-only customers behind NAT.
Incentives for ISPs to move, simple, if Ofcom says: you can't advertise your service as broadband without IPv6 support, they all will move within a month.@ksim I think we're making the same point.
ISPs can offer v6 or not offer v6.
ISPs can use CG-NAT, or give everyone their own IP.
There doesn't need to be any connection between the two, although DS-Lite is slightly nicer than v4-only CG-NAT, because there is less traffic sent over v4.
2 problems with that
1) They're running NAT64 which is basically another form of carrier grade NAT (so no different to DS-Lite)
2) This is a guest network for a corporate environment, so no one is going to be running servers on it or other things that you'd typically do on a home network, and people are going to be using relatively new and updated devices... And they still only got to 85%. Good luck convincing VM to implement something that will cause at least 900,000 customers to need to contact support!
When they get round to it, I'd bet on them offering DS-Lite to all, and then a real IPv4 address for a monthly extra. They win both ways then. Majority of customers are happy, minority of customers pay a bit more to do whatever they want a public address for, and they sell the majority of their addresses.
Yeah, I guess it is just CG-NAT but at the other side of the network.
The key thing for me is having an easy option to switch to full DS. Lots of people will be fine with CG-NAT, so give those people a DS-lite solution and save the IPs for users who actually need their own.
Looks like Vodafone has switched on dual-stack IPv6 for gigafast (FTTH) customers. Support confirmed the IPv6 availability for gigafast plans.
That's good news.
They seem to have several ASNs. I can't see any ipv6 activity on their busiest one, but I guess that's their mobile customers rather than FTTH. https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS5378 https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS25135
There is however some good growth on AS3209: VODANET International IP-Backbone of Vodafone, Germany (DE). https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS3209
Something more recent on the whole 6in4 speed issues saga, more recently there are reports in the Czech Republic that a similar issue is occurring on the UPC/Vodafone network, which Liberty Global have some hand in.
https://www.root.cz/clanky/pomale-ipv6-tunely-s-modemem-compal-od-upc-vodafone/nazory/ (In CZ, will need to be translated)
https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/hg4jn9/compal_ch7465lg_and_hurricane_electric_6to4/
It references an article I wrote about this specific issue, but interesting that this is also happening elsewhere, not just Virgin Media UK.
If you want IPv6 support on Virgin Media sooner (rather than who-knows-when later), you may need to take matters into your own hands.
I haven't had a chance to read all 100+ pages of this topic so this info may not be new, but that's what i did this weekend. I have Virgin Media Fibre 100M Broadband (started with 50M a few years ago, that is a story in and of itself).
The results:
(NTL listed above is the old name before Virgin Media rebranded)
Ok of course this is not an admission that Virgin Media lack of IPv6 is excusable by any means. Just that if you want something enough, sometimes you have to do it yourself.
My setup is basically the original Hub3 Virgin Media router/modem, however i also set up a linux host on my home network running pi-hole, that provides ad-blocked DNS services for my entire home LAN. So on that system, I simply utilized the free Hurricane Electric tunnelbroker offering, which sets up for you (on their side) a tunnel to the IPv6 based internet over your IPv4 network. They also provide instructions for the setup on your side and it was more straightforward than i imagined.
And voila, IPv6 on Virgin Media.. If folks are interested in the gory technical steps, I can set up a separate post.
You can also of course go the simpler route and set up IPv6 connectivity on an individual host basis more easily (H.E gives you up 5 tunnels per account) if you don't need your entire LAN with IPv6 connectivity.
Please do post a tutorial, i’ve been trying to get my edgerouter x to use he.net for ipv6
fayz wrote:Please do post a tutorial, i’ve been trying to get my edgerouter x to use he.net for ipv6
http://community.ui.com would be the better place to ask. If someone else here has the same router using HE then they might be able to help, but I would reach out to the UI help team.
"You can also of course go the simpler route and set up IPv6 connectivity on an individual host basis more easily (H.E gives you up 5 tunnels per account) if you don't need your entire LAN with IPv6 connectivity."
That's not the right way to do it. Different tunnels are meant for different physical locations. Each tunnel provides a /64 by default, but you can also request multiple /48 networks on each tunnel. If you're setting up tunnels on a host by host basis all your LAN traffic (using your delegated prefixes, at least, not locally scoped traffic) will be tromboning through the he.net servers, it'll be awfully slow
- fair point about the tunnels meant for diff locations.. and as mentioned by others, speed is not going to be anywhere native unfortunately.
Excellent question, you're absolutely right to ask and I really should have included this caveat that it's only a fifth of what i get natively through IPv4.. a simple speedtest on ipv6-test.com reveals ~20Mbps (vs the 100Mbps i normally get via native IPv4):
This speed restriction is likely at the Hurricane Electric tunnelbroker side, as I used iperf to a server i've colocated (on a gigabit line) and got:
$ sudo iperf -V -c 2001:470:1...:....::2 # connecting from server outbound toward home (download speed)
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 2001:470:1...:5a9::2, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 45.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 2a03::...:...:8:: port 58704 connected with 2001:470:1...:.....::2 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 22.6 MBytes 19.0 Mbits/sec$ sudo iperf -s -V # connecting from server inbound TOWARD home (upload speed)
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 4] local 2a03:....:.....:8:5054:ff:fee9:6bf1 port 5001 connected with 2001:470:1...:.....::2 port 59088
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 4] 0.0-10.2 sec 11.4 MBytes 9.34 Mbits/secSo again definitely not a replacement for Virgin Media getting their IPv6-act together and providing native connectivity, just something to dabble with if you can't wait.
