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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I have been a Virgin customer for I don't know how many years exactly 20+ years, at some time in the long ago past this has been discussed Infrastructure had been made capable but Virgin have never taken it seriously citing they have plenty of IPv4 addresses. One of the problems is that other Business can not get or limited to the number of IPv4 addresses they can get which means it becomes very difficult to connect to services that are IPv6 easily such as tunnels or bouncing off another host that is IPv6 enabled after VPN in
So I have voted with my feet and cancelled not going to make much difference as Virgin do not seem to listen to customers or possibly even there own staff but I am getting a better service at a lower cost and seems better support (Virgin once had excellent support).
Possibly unrelated, but I've recently noticed that doing a reverse DNS lookup on my WAN IP, the address now contains the phrase v4wan. Suggests they're gearing up for v6 addresses?
aztw-00-a1-v4wan-123456-cust987.vm11.cable.virginm.net
Yes, I am "v4wan" now too in Aylesbury HP21 9.
It's not something that I often do these days although I used to take a great interest in my varying reverse DNS entry from way back in the NTL days.
There's hope yet! Light at the end of the [fibre optic] tunnel (pun intended) after thirteen years!
The format beginning with cpc is the only one I know and it goes quite far back in terms of it's use, there's a post that breaks down the format: https://www.cableforum.uk/board/showpost.php?p=35514728&postcount=2 (goes back to 2012!), however it was in use in the NTL days for sure, just with a different sub and top level domain which I believe was broadband.ntl.com.
The rDNS example posted recently, seems like a newer and different format used. I've never seen it before, but my area is quite old HFC and dates back to the NTL days. The areas you both are in could be newer infrastructure/network equipment wise.
Regarding the question around the rDNS hostname being linked to account name/area. It's very much tied to the IP address allocated. I have seen my rDNS hostname change because of this. It has happened mainly when the network has had maintenance or segment changes happen and the DHCP lease is changed.
Actually this is something I hadn't clarified: does the RDNS "stick" with you by area and account? And does it not therefore follow that the forward DNS on that hostname can be used to track your public IPv4 (using a CNAME, e.g.)?
I'm now on CommunityFibre but my own struggles aren't over: the MikroTik RB5009 I used and that was perfect for VM doesn't have v6 acceleration/hardware-offload. So my next project is to set Linux up on my old 2018 Mac Mini and do the routing there. I hope good things are happening on VM's network soon; they can't absorb the turnover of customers forever, despite Ofcom's best efforts.
I can easily pull 600Mbps (provider limit) over ipv6 with an RB5009 without it breaking a sweat.. I'm sure it'd hit gigabit if I needed it to. That router is a beast.. the kind of thing you need with connections getting faster. You may find the mac mini is actually slower.
Interesting! I checked my rDNS but doesn't look like it's changed much since I last looked (couple of years probably!). Location and numbers masked for obvious reasons.
cpcxxxxxx-abcdxx-x-x-custxxx.xx-x.cable.virginm.net
abcd is the location area code and x in replacement of numbers.
That however looks like potentially more modern/different infrastructure given the naming structure difference.
It is known that their network has v6 enabled when you know where to look, as it's been possible to do some tcpdump packet sniffing, finding IPv6 prefixes and manually adding routes and an IPv6 address within the provided range (given no DHCPv6 or SLAAC for router advertisements) does work for some.
Based on known timelines I think their engineers did a lot of the IPv6 work a long time ago, it never got enabled, even after the public trial back in 2018/19. We don't know exactly why, we can only guess. We do know there's never been really any rush or priority.
So is this farewell? After all these years, I can't bear the tears, etc, etc.
CommunityFibre have made it to Stokey, so I'm off. 3GB, dynamic IPv4, glorious native v6. I'll stick around here to see what fresh new insanity ensues in the world of record-setting procrastination over IPv6, but honestly, this is the end of an increasingly difficult relationship based on nothing more than exclusivity. I came for the speed, nothing more, and now there's a better option. So farewell then.
No chance of anything like that here (even Openreach aren't that interested in FTTP to this house), but I used VM essentially as backhaul now.. VM connection with an AAISP L2TP tunnel over it providing my actual internet. Not the cheapest option but it means I get the speed and also the ipv6/static ip blocks.. best of both worlds as long as the VM connection stays up.
No, I completely understand, you have to do the best you can, and here's to hoping--praying, really--that some regulatory muscle is employed to bring the glass to you where you are if that's necessary. It's insane that it's taken as long as it has for FTTP to reach me here, in the north of the capital--God knows how more underserved parts of the country are coping with often sub-standard FTTC, if that.
Tragically, I’ve mostly just acclimatised to the fact that I have no ITv6 at all. It really does speak to the necessity of deploying essential technologies actively. And as long as there's no (supposedly clear) need for it, VM will continue to blithely ignore it, and I won't get it back 'til I move ISP and, as you say, get it "accidentally". Really, really sad, and an indictment of "the market" which Ofcom is so clearly in love with.
Left VM and finally got proper IPv6!!! But with "scary" GCNAT.
So far good, symmetrical speed, lower ping, better stability, and 10W less energy consumption by the server rack by getting rid of the VM hub. GCNAT can be solved with £5 per month for "static" IPv4, but most of the services are moved to zero trust and tunnels anyway and were not affected, so might skip getting one.
With the Upcoming changes to contracts coming up in November a lot of people may migrate to a new service and get IPv6 just out of luck. I have given up on it being pushed out - VM clearly has no intentions to roll it out until they are forced to.
There are upcoming software upgrades scheduled for CPE, I wonder if anything IPv6 related will progress with this.
The price of keeping IPv4 infrastructure is going up https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-aws-public-ipv4-address-charge-public-ip-insights/ .
I think "IPv6 router advertisements" is just a misconfiguration on the VM side. they just have no idea how to fix it, nor how to deploy IPv6.
Quite ironic citing Amazon, in that they too are very reactionary concerning IPv6; unlike VM though, aware of and advancing it, in their own way. Still no public-facing v6 for anything but their own hosted services, so not the best choice if you want a v6-native VPS.
Not sure what you mean by `no public-facing v6`, but we have IPv6 enabled product with AWS. All Load balancers and EC2 instances have public V6 if needed. Didn't run into any v6 limitations, except maybe routing a v6 subnet to an ec2 instance, but not really needed it.
Will be right back in...oh...5 years😋
Although some areas (like mine) have an FTTP connection (albeit RFOG) and the new nexfibre areas are XGS-PON
Yea, they don't have a choice (HFCN vs Fibre) to be honest.
The Television segment is dying (much like voice calls for the past 10/20) and if they don't move to lower latency higher capacity tech then they are going to get left behind. If they leave it too long then they'll be ready by the time fixed line services start dying.
100%
CityFibre are cabling Loughborough at the moment, and I'm hoping they'll move out to where I am (other side of the M1) soon. Only other option we have here is ~16Mb/s ADSL, which really isn't an option in this day and age.
That said, I should watch what I post on here. As soon as I started posting snarky comments today my cable modem went off line. Coincidence? I DON'T THINK SO!!!!! 🤣
