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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Coming back to this thread years later, it's not really surprising that so many are feeling frustrated with VM's stance. As I had tried to articulate before, VM's position of "We've got enough ipv4 addresses so we're okay [without ipv6]" was incredibly naive and could only lead to user frustrations as IPv6 only services come online. The frustrating experience at the time was after expressing this responses would come back "what ipv6 only services?" or even the impossible to prove [and wrong] "there are no ipv6 only services".
Some years ago I ran into some services I needed which were IPv6 only and after messing around with VPNs and IPv6 gateways I finally closed my account with VM and switched to a different provider. As much as I would **love** to return as a customer I'm still in that position where doing so would be shooting myself in the foot, it would cost me too much time and effort.
I wanted to write this post to express continued frustration with VM's lack of progress. Even though I'm no-longer a VM customer, I'm still hitting points where it's causing me trouble. I've just had to spend an annoying amount of time building an ipv4 interface where the ipv6 interface was a few minutes. And this because... some of my colleagues use Virgin Media.
I just wanted to put it out there that Virgin Media's painfully slow rollout of IPv6 is now starting to cost others time and money.
- I wish IPv6 used the ARP protocol as thier is a bit setting to say IPv6 with IPv6 IP's would make things easy.
Well, I decided for a bit of a laugh, I created this: https://havevirginmediaenabledipv6yet.co.uk/. Basically a summary of the IPv6 story on Virgin Media in one place for anyone interested.
I don't expect much to come of it if I'm honest, given they've ignored their own community forum for 10+ years, why would they listen to some angry pro IPv6 customer who bought a domain to poke fun?! I at least got a bit of experience with Jekyll and YAML, hosted through GitHub pages which I'd not used much before. I did have to proxy it through Cloudflare as GitHub also doesn't have IPv6 on it's GitHub pages environment, ironic creating a website calling out Virgin Media for lack of IPv6 when it itself wouldn't have it either LOL.
100+ pages of IPv6 banter on a single web page, if anyone wants to suggest changes to it, it's on GitHub.
You should have made it IPv6 only, then the staff wouldn't be able to complain about content as it wouldn't be accessible to them.
Hi Dgcarter,
thanks for your post, there are no updated on this if we do implement this we will be sure to let our customers know
Zoie
Zoie_P wrote:Hi Dgcarter,
thanks for your post, there are no updated on this if we do implement this we will be sure to let our customers know
Zoie
aaah Zoie. Would you be able to have a word with whoever one has words with and ask if there's any chance they could put together an update on this? only Virgin Media is.. aah.. shall we say "somewhat behind the curve" here and we've been asking these questions for at least 11 years going by my own involvement with this thread. this thread may be the oldest still active thread on this forum and it's pretty much the only thread I read here.
not to put too fine a point on it, but the speed is the only reason I'm still here as I really want IPv6 and virgin has been promising news about progress with this for a *long, long* time and not delivering... so if you could give them a little poke from us, that would be appreciated... thanks!
I just looked at the start of this thread again and noticed that the first two members of the forum team to respond to dgcarter's initial question on the first page are both now listed as retired...
- Gareth_L
Forum Team
Hello dgcarter
Thanks for your question
Right now we haven't got any plans to implement IPv6 on our network
How ever you are in the right place to find out once we do
Gareth_L
According to a planned works email: ‘Docsis 3.1 and DS configuration’...
(not done anything yet)
so.. do O2 know how to implement ipv6 do you think?
Judging by the O2 forums. Similar story on IPv6 related discussions, even on the mobile network.
Although as we've found more recently, it appears VM do in fact have an IPv6 enabled network active. If you know what you are doing you can unofficially just assign yourself an IPv6 address in the valid range provided by the Router Advertisements. Of course, completely experimental but it confirms IPv6 is there and dual stack is technically possible right now.
We must assume Virgin Media currently are filtering out DHCPv6/SLAAC traffic, so it's not really usable by normal means, you'd also need to have your own router to even test it currently as the Hub firmware will definitely stop you from being able to pick up the RAs that are being broadcast on the WAN when you look closely.
00:00:03.799837 IP6 (hlim 255, next-header ICMPv6 (58) payload length: 80) fe80::201:5cff:fe9c:2847 > ip6-allnodes: [icmp6 sum ok] ICMP6, router advertisement, length 80 hop limit 0, Flags [managed, other stateful], pref medium, router lifetime 9000s, reachable time 3600000ms, retrans timer 0ms prefix info option (3), length 32 (4): 2a02:8800:f000:18b0::/64, Flags [onlink], valid time 2592000s, pref. time 604800s 0x0000: 4080 0027 8d00 0009 3a80 0000 0000 2a02 0x0010: 8800 f000 18b0 0000 0000 0000 0000 prefix info option (3), length 32 (4): 2a02:88fd:18:a::/64, Flags [onlink], valid time infinity, pref. time infinity 0x0000: 4080 ffff ffff ffff ffff 0000 0000 2a02 0x0010: 88fd 0018 000a 0000 0000 0000 0000- 2a02:8800:f000:18b0::/64 - Looks to be a management network and internal, isn't reachable on IPv6 internet unless on VM network.
- 2a02:88fd:18:a::/64 - A global routed prefix that you can technically use and assign yourself an IPv6 address within. This will be different for each customer/area I believe.
I believe the problem with IPv6 tunnels is the TV box and not anything Virgin Media is doing as suggested by others.
It appears to me that when the TV box sees an IPv6 address it assumes it is from a Virgin server and switches over from IPv4 to IPv6.
By isolating the TV box from IPv6 addresses my tunnel is now working perfectly.
No, it’s not the tv box. I have the same issues and don’t take tv service from Virgin, just broadband.
I don't have TV service from Virgin but I still have the tunnel problem. Note that it isn't that the tunnel doesn't work but rather that the throughput is very, very low (< 30 Mbit/s).
I _do_ take TV from Virgin Media and my IPv6 tunnel through Hurrican Electric is running at 187mbit today over WiFi (I'm on the 200 package). Superhub 4 in modem mode, ASUS RT-AX86U as the router
After moving house came back to VM, openreach network was only 20Mbit in this area, which is very sad. Got super Hub 4 with fan in it! currently HE tunnel is working fine, getting ~200+Mbit for multi-stream download and ~32Mbit for uploads, https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1625581719833838755 this is over wifi with temporary network setup (haven't had my server cabinet set yet)
I'm not seeing any RAs here but probably it's only some areas (I think we're only DOCSIS3.0 here).. I'll keep the router listening though.
I've not seen any slowdowns but the L2TP tunnel to my other ISP (that handles my v4 and v6 blocks) is capped at 100Mbps anyway.
I've just renewed my 1Gb/1Gb leased line with Virgin Media Business, which costs considerable sums of money for our business.
I explicitly asked, can I have IPv6 please, and the response was:
With regards to IPv6, sadly this is still something that we don’t offer. I will make a note on my system to notify you if and when we can roll this out.
If........lol
We've had IPv6 with our other leased line with BTnet for yonks.
I saw this link earlier: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/11/update-on-ipv6-plans-for-virgin-media-talktalk-plusnet-and-vodafone.html
notable comment:
A VMO2 Spokesperson told ISPreview this week:
“We are continuing to plan our IPV6 deployment having tested several solutions and intend to introduce IPV6 for our customers in future.”
so, bugger all actual progress then... as expected...
On a slightly positive note, the Hub 4 that I'm on now after upgrading to Gigabit seems to have less issues with IPv6 tunnels such as those provided by Hurricane Electric.
Previously I would typically get something like 20 MBits/sec through my HE tunnel on my 350 MBits/sec connection. Sometimes I would get periods where I would get almost the full rate, but these seemed few and far between.
However, I'm now getting something like 900-950 MBits/sec on my IPv4 link, with speeds generally in excess of 500 MBits/sec over the HE IPv6 tunnel. While this isn't ideal, it's a whole lot better than it used to be.
Andy
On a slight note what was broken is still broken just not as broken..
Positive I guess 😜
So finally, for unrelated reasons, VM Business replaced my old Hitron router with one of the new GigaBit capable Chita units. Surprise, surprise (not), my HE 6in4 tunnel now consistently gives close to IPv4 speeds (I am on 500 Mbit service, not GigaBit [yet])
So, at least in my case, the problem was most definitely the old generation VM hardware (SuperHub 3 and Hitron).
I am, for now, a (relatively) happy bunny.
This thread is epic. Kept me warm during the cold winter months, while I was on A&A where I had native v6. Finally yielded to temptation (and speeds) and came back to VM because I was sick and tired of being stuck in the slow lane on 80/20 FTTC and VM were the only other option. My dad's place isn't too far from here and I get nearly double that on LTE when I'm visiting. It was too much.
But I do miss IPv6. That peer-to-peer-ness is painfully absent at first blush on v4. I'm looking into Zerotier and Tailscale as ways of trying to restore it, but it's not IPv6, of course. I'm not too keen on the idea of using HE tunnels because of the effects they have on geolocation detection.
I'm not sure I'd cry over the loss of a public v4 address if DS-lite were deployed; we probably ought to be prepared for the arrival of CG-NAT anyway. Yes, it means you need a VPS to let in v4 traffic on a public port--not ideal, but possible, especially with tools like FRP. And Tailscale/Zerotier are well-suited for CG-NAT situations as they reach out to do the mesh VPN/UDP hole-punch thing. I'm more bothered that I have the Hub4, and so can't actually benefit from all my downstream bandwidth in modem mode.
Here's to hoping for progress--any progress at all--on IPv6 on VM!
IllLustration wrote:… I’m not too keen on the idea of using HE tunnels because of the effects they have on geolocation detection.
…
A few weeks ago I notified Maxmind of how HE publish prefix Geolocation data and it has been fixed for me, most noticeable on sites that use Cloudflare. They seem to have done some work behind the scenes.
IllLustration wrote:This thread is epic. Kept me warm during the cold winter months, while I was on A&A where I had native v6. Finally yielded to temptation (and speeds) and came back to VM because I was sick and tired of being stuck in the slow lane on 80/20 FTTC and VM were the only other option. My dad's place isn't too far from here and I get nearly double that on LTE when I'm visiting. It was too much.
But I do miss IPv6. That peer-to-peer-ness is painfully absent at first blush on v4. I'm looking into Zerotier and Tailscale as ways of trying to restore it, but it's not IPv6, of course. I'm not too keen on the idea of using HE tunnels because of the effects they have on geolocation detection.
I'm not sure I'd cry over the loss of a public v4 address if DS-lite were deployed; we probably ought to be prepared for the arrival of CG-NAT anyway. Yes, it means you need a VPS to let in v4 traffic on a public port--not ideal, but possible, especially with tools like FRP. And Tailscale/Zerotier are well-suited for CG-NAT situations as they reach out to do the mesh VPN/UDP hole-punch thing. I'm more bothered that I have the Hub4, and so can't actually benefit from all my downstream bandwidth in modem mode.
Here's to hoping for progress--any progress at all--on IPv6 on VM!
AAISP offer the L2TP service where you can have IPv6 through them using your VM connection, I use this currently for native IPv6. 6in4 is great (and free!), but geolocation is still hit and miss on many services and relying on 6in4 is basically one step above not deploying IPv6 anyway these days. I find when using 6in4 I usually have force DNS requests to only return IPv4 A records rather than AAAA on various sites like Netflix, Discovery+ etc because they think HE is US because of the address space being registered in ARIN. Hence L2TP option avoids that, it is capped at 200 mbps and not unlimited data though.
jamesmacwhite wrote:
AAISP offer the L2TP service where you can have IPv6 through them using your VM connection, I use this currently for native IPv6. 6in4 is great (and free!), but geolocation is still hit and miss on many services and relying on 6in4 is basically one step above not deploying IPv6 anyway these days. I find when using 6in4 I usually have force DNS requests to only return IPv4 A records rather than AAAA on various sites like Netflix, Discovery+ etc because they think HE is US because of the address space being registered in ARIN. Hence L2TP option avoids that, it is capped at 200 mbps and not unlimited data though.Yeah, I asked A&A about their L2TP cap, they say things may change with the upgrade of their LNSs to support FTTP services and when that happens that may well be the way. Plus you'd get a static v4 in the process killing a couple of birds with one stone. But the 200 mbps limit now means if you want faster service you have to order multiple lines and bond, which they do support but obviously I decline to do that for cost reasons.
How are you managing DNS responses? It's probably something I'd only do on an unconditional basis (native always wins).
Cheers.
Well, it's finally happening! Openreach are deploying FTTP in my area, loads of activity on one.network and contractors for Openreach are in the area, digging up pavements and putting in ducting with connection points outside each address. I got pinged recently that next week Openreach contractors are specifically at my road. Luckily, I live on a newer estate which already has underground ducting and a existing entry cover for the FTTC line, so hopefully no digging and more a case of just running the fibre when it gets to me.
There's going to be some competition for fibre broadband finally that's not FTTC/VDSL. What's going to be first to go live, an alternative FTTP provider or Virgin Media deploying IPv6. The race is on!
jamesmacwhite wrote:What's going to be first to go live, an alternative FTTP provider or Virgin Media deploying IPv6. The race is on!
I think I know where I'd put my money if I were a gambling man...
Andy
I wish I could get FTTP, just for improved upload. The crazy thing for me is I live on a small 50s estate and the first 6 houses are served from a pole on the main road and have FTTP available from the Chorley exchange, the others are served from poles on the estate connected to Bamber Bridge with no FTTP available to us. we are scheduled to get FTTP by 2024 so stuck with VM for some time yet.
Still I just checked my tunnel speed. I use PfSense to create the tunnel and deliver a /64 to the home network.
So 600Mb download, so still some overhead from HE being consumed or capped.
jamesmacwhite wrote:Well, it's finally happening! Openreach are deploying FTTP in my area ...
Gosh, does this mean that your de facto role of Chief IPv6 Evangelist for Virgin Media is coming to an end? I do hope not! 🙂
It's sad, though. Really VM's signal failure to acknowledge IPv6's significance to a user base that is, especially toward the higher tiers of service, essentially entirely self-selecting for technical aptitude, means that they are going to find themselves strikingly bereft of their best customers and advocates. Oh, well. I too look forward to FTTP, and I'm a newly-returning customer! Best of luck on your new travels, and please keep us informed.
Keep tunnelling!
