IPv6 support on Virgin media
Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?
Forum Discussion
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: 10,489
I'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)
Cool. Network, apart from CPE, has been ready for nearly a year now. Trials on the 'private' cable network, the 10. addresses being moved to IPv6, have been a thing for a while. Great to see prefixes starting to be advertised .
Anonymous wrote:Cool. Network, apart from CPE, has been ready for nearly a year now. Trials on the 'private' cable network, the 10. addresses being moved to IPv6, have been a thing for a while. Great to see prefixes starting to be advertised .
Thanks that is good to know. There are also two IPv6 BGP peers now. The same two prefixes have been advertised for quite a while now.
For VMB users, I'm wondering whether VM is going to tunnel IPv4 over the IPv6 with GRE. So business users won't be using CG NAT and residential users might have to swap to business to retain the full NAT capabilities.
And will IPv6 basically become static ie each user is assigned a static IPv6 allocation rather than a dynamic one? Alleviating the current static/dynamic choice.
Could the pricing tiers change due to this? eg
1. Normal user = IPv6 static with IPv4 CG NAT
2. Elevated User = IPv6 plus IPv4 (not CG NAT via GRE) = extra cost.Sunday update --- the Virgin Media IPv6 growth curve continued over the Xmas / New Year period:
Today's sample count for VM stands at 16,787 per day.
So, here we are, 2019 and still no IPv6. It would be nice to think that the release of an IPv6 service is imminent, but Virgin has ignored our hopes so many times before. If anyone sees other indications that something is stirring in the wings, it would be nice to hear your thoughts.
Morgaine.
By the end of March, this thread will have been going for nine years.
Best not to rush things...
