IPv6 support on Virgin media
Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?
Forum Discussion
Sunday update --- The steady rise which started in early October continues.
There's not really much to say. IPv6 activity is still growing at its previous nearly-constant rate, probably related to equipment rollout since populations of people don't usually expand at such a linear pace, but it's just speculation. We might get a hint of what's behind it when the curve changes.
Today's count stands at 7,365 per day.
Morgaine.
Sunday update --- Perhaps a slight hint of a tail-off now, but the strong rise still continues nevertheless:
We're into the range of IPv6 counts which turned into peaks in the curve of last year and in March of 2018, so it's a pretty reasonable expectation that the current curve is destined to do the same. I suppose it's possible for this IPv6 trial (if that's indeed what it is) to turn into an IPv6 product release directly, without first dropping back. Maybe someone knows what Virgin's standard M.O. tends to be for trialed products.
The slight slowdown does mean that we won't be reaching 10,000 in November, as it seemed very likely that we would at the rate of mid-October.
Today's Virgin APNIC count stands at 8,428 per day.
Morgaine.
I think the numbers you are looking at are heavily damped. If you look at the daily graph (https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS5089?a=5089&c=GB&x=0&s=1&p=1&w=30&s=0) which seems to respond to changes much more quickly it looks like the trial is over and things are returning to their pre-trial state. With the pre-Christmas change freeze coming I doubt we'll see a deployment before the New Year.
@davefiddes writes:
I think the numbers you are looking at are heavily damped. If you look at the daily graph (https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS5089?a=5089&c=GB&x=0&s=1&p=1&w=30&s=0) which seems to respond to changes much more quickly
I think it's just the opposite --- that the Javascript tables of raw CSV-like data are the actual sample counts which I plot, while the graph you linked has badly messed up processing and is showing fall-off for recent days because it's averaging over the 30-day period of their default presentation, and the month hasn't completed yet. You have to use the Average Interval (Days) button to change the interval to 1 day to match the daily CSV, but when you do, instead of seeing taller and sharper peaks and troughs owing to independent samples, instead you see a broader hump suggesting that it's still using its monthly processing but resampled to give it daily resolution. That's not how you'd expect data to behave on changing its averaging window.
Although we would never be able to detect from the CSV a simple delay without other processing --- the same data being sent out as they receive in, but delayed by some days --- I see no reason why they would want to do that. And it's definitely not averaged, because we've seen near-instant drops in a day or two, without the tell-tale signs of averaging,
Can we dump data from those graphs you linked? I could tell a lot more from looking at the underlying numbers that they're plotting. I don't want percentages on the Y-axis, they're next to meaningless. In the Javascript/CSV source, we can see not only the samples but the samplecounts too --- it's much more reassuring and compelling statistically.
@davefiddes:
I think I've discovered what's wrong with the graphic you linked. Take a look at the image below, and compare it with your curve after you've set the Average Interval (days) to 1 day, and clicked on the 3m (3 month) button to place the start of October 2018 just a little to the left of centre. It's not just vaguely similar, it's almost exactly identical! Well guess what I plotted --- oh, you know already because I described it in the caption, it's not the IPv6 counts but the rate of change of IPv6 counts, namely their first derivative!I'm including below the daily samples from mid-September onwards so that you can match the peaks and troughs yourself numerically. To make this easier I've included an additional column, "Increments", which makes any daily excursions from steady growth very easy to spot. The graph above is simply a plot of the Increments column from 2018-09-30 until today.
========== ====== ========== ===== ===== =========
DATE AS Users IPv6 %UKv6 Increment
========== ====== ========== ===== ===== =========
2018_09_15: VIRGIN 11,828,894 2,048 0.01 3
2018_09_16: VIRGIN 11,823,021 2,032 0.01 -16
2018_09_17: VIRGIN 11,808,491 2,052 0.01 20
2018_09_18: VIRGIN 11,805,704 2,065 0.01 13
2018_09_19: VIRGIN 11,799,952 2,069 0.01 4
2018_09_20: VIRGIN 11,795,879 2,082 0.01 13
2018_09_21: VIRGIN 11,784,519 2,103 0.01 21
2018_09_22: VIRGIN 11,780,874 2,147 0.01 44
2018_09_23: VIRGIN 11,772,573 2,163 0.01 16
2018_09_24: VIRGIN 11,766,071 2,166 0.01 3
2018_09_25: VIRGIN 11,755,321 2,164 0.01 -2
2018_09_26: VIRGIN 11,747,966 2,127 0.01 -37
2018_09_27: VIRGIN 11,751,015 2,070 0.01 -57
2018_09_28: VIRGIN 11,751,527 2,056 0.01 -14
2018_09_29: VIRGIN 11,750,014 2,058 0.01 2
2018_09_30: VIRGIN 11,750,876 2,087 0.01 29
2018_10_01: VIRGIN 11,740,277 2,105 0.01 18
2018_10_02: VIRGIN 11,762,729 2,116 0.01 11
2018_10_03: VIRGIN 11,778,530 2,083 0.01 -33
2018_10_04: VIRGIN 11,779,459 2,188 0.01 105
2018_10_05: VIRGIN 11,772,722 2,246 0.01 58
2018_10_06: VIRGIN 11,783,477 2,300 0.01 54
2018_10_07: VIRGIN 11,778,231 2,388 0.02 88
2018_10_08: VIRGIN 11,772,521 2,504 0.02 116
2018_10_09: VIRGIN 11,759,015 2,551 0.02 47
2018_10_10: VIRGIN 11,741,738 2,681 0.02 130
2018_10_11: VIRGIN 11,723,514 2,835 0.02 154
2018_10_12: VIRGIN 11,714,250 2,947 0.02 112
2018_10_13: VIRGIN 11,687,497 3,069 0.02 122
2018_10_14: VIRGIN 11,671,210 3,176 0.02 107
2018_10_15: VIRGIN 11,650,218 3,321 0.02 145
2018_10_16: VIRGIN 11,627,092 3,484 0.02 163
2018_10_17: VIRGIN 11,608,439 3,679 0.02 195
2018_10_18: VIRGIN 11,586,980 3,792 0.02 113
2018_10_19: VIRGIN 11,567,848 3,878 0.02 86
2018_10_20: VIRGIN 11,546,528 4,020 0.03 142
2018_10_21: VIRGIN 11,534,236 4,165 0.03 145
2018_10_22: VIRGIN 11,519,716 4,384 0.03 219
2018_10_23: VIRGIN 11,499,708 4,575 0.03 191
2018_10_24: VIRGIN 11,480,227 4,816 0.03 241
2018_10_25: VIRGIN 11,459,263 4,996 0.03 180
2018_10_26: VIRGIN 11,443,602 5,105 0.03 109
2018_10_27: VIRGIN 11,426,224 5,205 0.03 100
2018_10_28: VIRGIN 11,412,717 5,391 0.03 186
2018_10_29: VIRGIN 11,389,636 5,775 0.04 384
2018_10_30: VIRGIN 11,364,642 5,948 0.04 173
2018_10_31: VIRGIN 11,346,846 6,092 0.04 144
2018_11_01: VIRGIN 11,325,180 6,266 0.04 174
2018_11_02: VIRGIN 11,300,251 6,465 0.04 199
2018_11_03: VIRGIN 11,284,445 6,509 0.04 44
2018_11_04: VIRGIN 11,267,589 6,598 0.04 89
2018_11_05: VIRGIN 11,251,383 6,739 0.04 141
2018_11_06: VIRGIN 11,241,529 6,828 0.04 89
2018_11_07: VIRGIN 11,229,266 6,981 0.04 153
2018_11_08: VIRGIN 11,219,282 7,071 0.04 90
2018_11_09: VIRGIN 11,210,117 7,177 0.04 106
2018_11_10: VIRGIN 11,203,488 7,255 0.05 78
2018_11_11: VIRGIN 11,192,460 7,365 0.05 110
2018_11_12: VIRGIN 11,180,045 7,445 0.05 80
2018_11_13: VIRGIN 11,156,811 7,510 0.05 65
2018_11_14: VIRGIN 11,141,446 7,673 0.05 163
2018_11_15: VIRGIN 11,128,883 7,767 0.05 94
2018_11_16: VIRGIN 11,129,417 7,850 0.05 83
2018_11_17: VIRGIN 11,113,102 7,875 0.05 25
2018_11_18: VIRGIN 11,098,078 7,901 0.05 26
2018_11_19: VIRGIN 11,086,364 8,018 0.05 117
2018_11_20: VIRGIN 11,071,854 8,103 0.05 85
2018_11_21: VIRGIN 11,059,650 8,193 0.05 90
2018_11_22: VIRGIN 11,042,844 8,224 0.05 31
2018_11_23: VIRGIN 11,022,559 8,287 0.05 63
2018_11_24: VIRGIN 10,999,645 8,358 0.05 71
2018_11_25: VIRGIN 10,985,486 8,428 0.05 70
========== ====== ========== ===== ===== =========
DATE AS Users IPv6 %UKv6 Increment
========== ====== ========== ===== ===== =========This almost perfect match is far beyond any possibility of accident --- they either intended to plot the rate of change or else they have a first derivative term in their plotting code and triggered it through some programming error.
It does at least give us a chance to check the time-sync between their graphics and my CSV tables taken from APNIC's Javascript. The cleanest place to check is the start of October, because it was preceded by a long period of relative quiet, and so a sudden increase will be equally distinguishable in both the counts themselves and in their first derivative. And sure enough, my counts start to skyrocket with the first large increase on 2018-10-04, and their graph spikes too, hence confirming that we are in time-sync on 4th October. Well you can't be in sync on one day and not in sync later on in a daily sampling sequence, it doesn't work that way. :P
In summary, I'm completely convinced that we're both looking at exactly the same data. They've just done something really odd when trying to plot it, either accidentally or by intent.
PS. The fact that despite time-sync at the start of October, the daily counts rise monotonically for almost 2 whole months, from around 2,000 to well over 8,000, and yet that isn't reflected in the graphs you linked, highlights that they're doing something very wrong. Given the time-sync, you can't make one half of a 2-month monotonic rise vanish under any processing I know, unless you're plotting the derivative and so the gradient goes negative as the growth slows down a little.
Morgaine.
Since the graph that @davefiddes linked at https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS5089?a=5089&c=GB&x=0&s=1&p=1&w=30&s=0 will change continually and could lose the extremely close correspondence to my plot of the first derivative of the APNIC daily counts, I'm recording a copy for us here:
It's the portion from the Oct 2018 line just left of centre towards the right that matches very closely, as this is the 3-month view. You can match the peaks and troughs, one by one. :P
My fortnightly update graph is sticking to its usual Sunday slot, but today we have a couple of things to celebrate so here's a little advance post.
Virgin's IPv6 APNIC counts hit the nice round milestone of 10K daily counts yesterday, and today we maintained that stride by surpassing our previous all-time record which was set all the way back in 2017_09_28:
========== ====== ========== ====== ===== =========
DATE AS Users IPv6 %UKv6 Increment
========== ====== ========== ====== ===== =========
2017_09_28: VIRGIN 15,832,231 10,301 0.07 348 <- Old record peak: 10,301
..........
2018_12_01: VIRGIN 10,857,622 8,928 0.06 296
2018_12_02: VIRGIN 10,842,927 9,204 0.06 276
2018_12_03: VIRGIN 10,817,456 9,476 0.06 272
2018_12_04: VIRGIN 10,933,810 9,521 0.06 45
2018_12_05: VIRGIN 10,864,165 9,788 0.06 267
2018_12_06: VIRGIN 10,838,360 10,137 0.06 349 <- 10K Milestone
2018_12_07: VIRGIN 10,823,198 10,489 0.06 352 <- New record peak: 10,489I've included the daily increments column again just to highlight how the latest growth is matching the rate of increase that we saw back in 2017. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, but I'm happy as long as IPv6 activity is rising. :P
Who knows, maybe it means that Virgin is preparing a nice little Xmas present for us.
PS. I have been known to be over-optimistic before. :P
Morgaine.
Xmas present? Which year?
It's Virgin Media, so "Any year except the current one", apparently. :(
We're certainly not lacking precedent for the bleakest of views, as they fuel it by their actions. Very sad for an alleged technical organization, perpetually pushing away the future.
Morgaine wrote:It's Virgin Media, so "Any year except the current one", apparently. :(
We're certainly not lacking precedent for the bleakest of views, as they fuel it by their actions. Very sad for an alleged technical organization, perpetually pushing away the future.
When I was told years ago that as a ISP they don't support DNS or SMTP then I knew they were non technical. They did tell me at the time that they supported Internet Explorer or Outlook Express. I remember too back when using a router was something that a tech visiting your house would go crazy over, as it was strictly not allowed. Heck, even after virgin media took over It took me months to get them to explain why my modem wouldn't take the correct configuration file, turns out they just didn't want the older modems to have the new configs. The staff tho kept saying the problem was that I needed some premium support to make my WiFi faster. Sigh....
I would hazard a guess that not one senior manager or above at Virgin Media has any real technical ability or knowledge beyond what the PR department sends them for review.
Sunday update -- well the IPv6 counts sure are shooting up!
We're in uncharted territory now, beyond the peaks of IPv6 activity ever seen before by APNIC for AS5089. Although we can only guess how to interpret these figures, two things seem clear:
• These numbers are not yet signs of the release of a public IPv6 service, since they are too small by one or two orders of magnitude, depending how release is done. At the same time it should be mentioned that the counts are far above the noise level in the data, so they do indicate something with statistical significance. We just don't know what.
• The growth in these daily counts is pretty linear, which I interpret as some kind of ongoing equipment rollout process, because that is one of the things that is commonly linear in growth since it is limited by human manpower. For example, it might be the number of deployment engineers available to visit equipment installations around the country that is constraining growth in the APNIC counts to a near-constant amount.
If it is indeed some kind of resource-limited deployment process that is responsible, then that deployment will eventually come to an end, and it's not unreasonable to guess that we might be due for it any time now. After all, Virgin's network won't have grown too much since the end of September 2017, and the similar growth rates now and then do give some confidence that there is no significant new multiplying factor involved.
Despite the grim reality of last weeks' posts, so strongly anchored in the very bleak precedent of Virgin's past actions, at least things are moving in the right direction.
Morgaine.
Guys - are you aware of Liberty's IPv6 rollout document [Dec 7th 2018]?
It's online at https://www.ipv6.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/LG-Virgin-IPv6-Rollout-UK-IPv6-Council.pdf
"IPv6 Broadband Product launch soon"
cthonus wrote:Guys - are you aware of Liberty's IPv6 rollout document [Dec 7th 2018]?
It's online at https://www.ipv6.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/LG-Virgin-IPv6-Rollout-UK-IPv6-Council.pdf
"IPv6 Broadband Product launch soon"
It is something to look at while we eagerly await.
Thanks for that. I must have just missed that update when I checked the other day. It's short and sweet.
Hope that "soon" means January.
- January? Which year?
2019.
This is the most affirmative that anyone from Virgin has ever been about deploying IPv6. Surely it's time to pack up the cynicism?
I noted one of the Drawbacks listed on the PDF was "Strict NAT" ....... Gamer's are going to love that one !
- Where in the document is an implementation date mentioned?
When have you ever seen Virgin:
- Publicly discuss the IPv6 transition method they plan to use
- Explain their (LG's) deployment across the rest of Europe already using that transition mechanism
- Explain the changes to their core network and voice networks to enable IPv6
- Run a trial with more than 13,000 users (estimated)
- Commit to it coming "soon" with no caveats (Remember the best we've had is "second half of 2018 subject to content providers")
Sure, they didn't put a date on the launch. I know from personal experience what it takes to put a date on a large product launch. It's not fun and I can understand why they didn't announce that at a user group meeting like the IPv6 Council.
From all of the evidence VM are publicly serious about deploying IPv6 for the first time. Given the size of the UK VM deployment is going to be approximately what they have already deployed across Europe it's not surprising that we're going last but it seems almost certain that we're about to go.
Adduxi wrote:I noted one of the Drawbacks listed on the PDF was "Strict NAT" ....... Gamer's are going to love that one !
Not just gamers either. ;)
Note in their document it says - Almost transparent to customers
While people browsing the net, watching things like netflix and using facebook etc won't see a difference, there's a lot of people who will.
Tim
Edit - Indeed Google, Facebook and Netflix ave been IPv6 capable for some time.
I wonder how they will implement it for voom business customers which is currently done via an IPv4 GRE tunnel?
@cthonus writes:
Guys - are you aware of Liberty's IPv6 rollout document [Dec 7th 2018]?
It's online at https://www.ipv6.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/LG-Virgin-IPv6-Rollout-UK-IPv6-Council.pdf
"IPv6 Broadband Product launch soon"Excellent info, despite lack of official date for release. Many thanks, cthonus!
@davefiddes writes:
From all of the evidence VM are publicly serious about deploying IPv6 for the first time. Given the size of the UK VM deployment is going to be approximately what they have already deployed across Europe it's not surprising that we're going last but it seems almost certain that we're about to go.
I hope you're right, davefiddes!
Don't be too harsh on the pessimists though. I expect that they just don't want to get burned by Virgin again. Bleak precedent is certainly on their side, so I think their caution is understandable, after this very long and painful wait.
I choose to be optimistic about it once more, inline with what I'm seeing on APNIC stats.
I really want us to get beyond the phase of fighting ISPs for IPv6 and into the war against Internet sites who haven't yet started a transition. Provision of native IPv6 nationwide by UK ISPs is a necessary precondition for this next phase.
Morgaine.
Yes. Long way to go on getting services, protocols and content providers IPv6 enabled. It's just not part of everyday engineering practice yet.
Sunday update --- the strong and highly linear upward trend in IPv6 counts continues:
I can't think of any new angle to the stats, so I'll just say ....
♫♫♫ Merry Xmas to all of the community's exceedingly patient IPv6 followers and contributors. ♫♫♫
Morgaine.
Morgaine wrote:Sunday update --- the strong and highly linear upward trend in IPv6 counts continues:
I can't think of any new angle to the stats, so I'll just say ....
♫♫♫ Merry Xmas to all of the community's exceedingly patient IPv6 followers and contributors. ♫♫♫
Morgaine.
I would say that it is like being on on the way up on a new roller coaster at somewhere like alton towers. I hope the ride will be better than anticipated ;-).
Merry Christmas to you and everybody else here, too.
https://stats.labs.apnic.net/cgi-bin/v6pop?c=GB
Sat 5/1/19 = 16564 (estimated)
