IPv6 support on Virgin media
Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?
Forum Discussion
It's a pity that we don't know for sure (officially) which approach Liberty Global used in other jurisdictions. It's reasonable to assume that whatever they did elsewhere they'll do in the UK too.
Lacking that information, I think I'll cast my guess with @ravenstar68, because the *FAT* long tail of IPv4 that would result if IPv6 were given automatically only to new customers makes no sense to me. The fat long tail would have the following disadvantages:
• By needing to keep all of their existing IPv4 resources around, it wouldn't let Virgin move rapidly to IPv6-only internal infrastructure. That would be very bad for them since VM would lose the large savings in cost, manpower, equipment and reduced headache / security risk which provide most of the corporate incentive for ISPs to move fast to IPv6-only internally.
• It wouldn't give Virgin any information about how many IPv4 blocks can be freed up for selling off while the market price of IPv4 addresses is high. The loss of that easy one-off windfall does not seem very strategic, and for a profit-motivated company, unlikely.
• It would waste the high degree of compatibility and operational transparency of the two protocols, which for most common applications are completely interchangeable and work fine side by side. Most users wouldn't notice the change at all, giving Virgin a quick win. Losing that low-hanging fruit would delay their IPv6 transition plans and burden them with high costs for a long period, a very high price to pay.
Transitioning to IPv6 with a long IPv6 tail is a very bad package deal, so I expect Virgin / Liberty Global to switch everyone over at once, and then roll back to native IPv4 (without IPv6) for the relatively few who want it. Trickling out IPv6 is such a bad package deal that it's never even mentioned as an IPv6 deployment M.O. --- the normal use of "long tail" is to refer to the long tail of legacy IPv4, slowly fading away into the sunset as IPv4-only equipment dies or is modernized.
PS. "IPv4-as-a-Service" (in the sense of an extra revenue stream for ISPs) is only ever mooted as a long-term goal, an option that becomes viable only after IPv4 usage has become niche. It's unlikely to affect the decision process for present-day ISPs when considering how best to transition to an IPv6 world, because a niche IPv4 is beyond the visible horizon.
Morgaine.
I wonder if older routers will work with it.
And what percentage of customers are on the latest one.
@andrewducker writes:
I wonder if older routers will work with it.
That'll depend on how old the equipment is, but Virgin is probably well positioned in that respect by now, because over the last few years they have imposed on customers a mandatory free CPE upgrade with no alternative offered other than to leave VM. I was caught up in this mass upgrade so I'm describing this first-hand.
The fact that it was a free upgrade says a lot about how important the mass upgrade was to Virgin. The forced upgrade wasn't necessarily driven by the need to support IPv6 of course, as new equipment allows them to offer new services to customers with upgraded CPEs. Nevertheless, being compatible with their IPv6 plans was almost certainly a side effect of the upgrades.
Morgaine.
Makes sense. I'm on A Superhub 2,which is presumably therefore compatible.
I'm (obviously) on IPV4, but 40 miles from me someone with the same kit is on IPV6. IPV4 is offered as an option
I would assume thats the model VM will use, as you know, they already are as LG
Morgaine wrote:@andrewducker writes:
I wonder if older routers will work with it.
That'll depend on how old the equipment is, but Virgin is probably well positioned in that respect by now, because over the last few years they have imposed on customers a mandatory free CPE upgrade with no alternative offered other than to leave VM. I was caught up in this mass upgrade so I'm describing this first-hand.
The fact that it was a free upgrade says a lot about how important the mass upgrade was to Virgin. The forced upgrade wasn't necessarily driven by the need to support IPv6 of course, as new equipment allows them to offer new services to customers with upgraded CPEs. Nevertheless, being compatible with their IPv6 plans was almost certainly a side effect of the upgrades.
Morgaine.
You can reject some of their upgrades. For instance, I rejected the SH3 three times now. My 2ac seemed to be dying before I went away in December, but since I have returned it all seems okay (must have not been the modem).
I would have thought that the ability to brag with the slightly better AC WiFi AND the "Virgin Media" public WiFi is the main reason they want to push the newer gear out. The larger channel groups that can be bonded should help with utilization too I would think.
Users with older routers shouldn't worry too much at this stage I don't think. By the time IPv6 deployment happens you will have gone through two more sets of routers ;P.
on
Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?
As mentioned..... post almost 9 years ago!
Now we're just about to hit the 18000 mark on the IPv6 counter in this thread which roughly equates to about 5.610 addresses per day since this thread was started! OMG, I need to get a life and go and watch some paint dry!
louis-m wrote:on
Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?
As mentioned..... post almost 9 years ago!
Now we're just about to hit the 18000 mark on the IPv6 counter in this thread which roughly equates to about 5.610 addresses per day since this thread was started! OMG, I need to get a life and go and watch some paint dry!
Probably "next year", in line with what VM have been hinting for several years now, and I expect to continue to do indefinitely.
Sunday 13/1/19 = 18404 tick tock, tick tock
Today's is the highest daily increment of recent times, and it follow a pretty high (though not record) Saturday too:
========== ====== ========== ========== ===== ========= ======
DATE AS Users IPv6-Users %UKv6 Increment %ISPv6
========== ====== ========== ========== ===== ========= ======
2019_01_07: VIRGIN 10,560,952 17,065 0.10 278 0.16
2019_01_08: VIRGIN 10,565,590 17,167 0.10 102 0.16
2019_01_09: VIRGIN 10,559,118 17,396 0.10 229 0.16
2019_01_10: VIRGIN 10,558,475 17,499 0.10 103 0.17
2019_01_11: VIRGIN 10,552,087 17,667 0.10 168 0.17
2019_01_12: VIRGIN 10,540,417 17,992 0.11 325 0.17
2019_01_13: VIRGIN 10,542,576 18,507 0.11 515 0.18The +515 is a record increment since the latter half of 2018, taking VM's IPv6 usage to the record daily of 18,507 counts. It should be stressed though that one or two days of high valued samples does not carry any real statistical significance. Just to put it in context, here is the plot of daily increments over the time that I've been recording APNIC data for the UK:
As this plot shows, we've experienced much higher daily increments in the past, as well as very large daily drops, so don't read too much into such incremental changes until they begin to persist over a period. :)
Morgaine.
Tuesday 15/1/19 = 19147 still on the up.....
I've just been watching the UK IPv6 Council's annual meeting video update from Virgin: https://youtu.be/16FdlxyFQgY?t=1302
It adds a bit of colour to the slides which were posted a month or so back. Their representative was an engineer and clearly not permitted to represent the wider business but it was clear that he was keen and that they are technically able to launch as soon as possible.
The big downside came in the Q/A at the end of his presentation. It seems that there is much debate about Modem Mode within VM. There is a strong chance that when IPv6 is rolled out that Modem Mode will not be permitted any more. The reasoning being that not many devices exist that support DS-Lite and that the end-user experience would be very poor as a result. This is extremely disappointing to say the least."Enthusiast" firewalls OpenWRT and pfSense all support DS-Lite just fine and from a cursory search so do routers from Linksys and TP-Link. That said the state of documentation is currently pitiful so I have some sympathy with the anti-MM voices within VM. Surely this is a chicken-and-egg situation though and if VM permitted MM the state of documentation, device firmware and community assistance would evolve. I'd be quite happy if VM denied any support to people who enable Modem Mode.
Would modem mode matter here? You would simply put give your router an IPv6 address and then distribute from there. I don't see it being too big an issue.
Anonymous wrote:I've just been watching the UK IPv6 Council's annual meeting video update from Virgin: https://youtu.be/16FdlxyFQgY?t=1302
"Enthusiast" firewalls OpenWRT and pfSense all support DS-Lite just fine and from a cursory search so do routers from Linksys and TP-Link. That said the state of documentation is currently pitiful so I have some sympathy with the anti-MM voices within VM. Surely this is a chicken-and-egg situation though and if VM permitted MM the state of documentation, device firmware and community assistance would evolve. I'd be quite happy if VM denied any support to people who enable Modem Mode.
Not real sure who the guy is, LinkedIn seems to suggest he's a principal design engineer, but Virgin tend to have a lot of people giving a lot of views and none of them ever seem to be official. What he described is moving everything to a core Ipv6 network before the switch ever happens, I think Morgaine has given that as a likely core goal and as such seems to be correct.
I think that Virgin not having modem mode could be a mistake. The problem will be in the way that the ALG and Firewall functions work more than a multiple-nat layer issue. If your under CGNAT then an extra layer of NAT isn't going to hurt anything, drop your router WAN the IPv4 DMZ and It's hard to see any extra issues being caused by that, just overactive ALG/Firewall problems with the VM Gateway equipment.
It's not so much of a Chicken and Egg thing either. I say that because Virgin Media as a whole is quite small when it comes to users who will be looking for firmware upgrades from router manufactures. Nearly every major home router maker supports DSLite on some equipment, so if they wanted to that feature could be added in today. What I suspect will happen is that non-enterprise equipment will not see firmware upgrades to deal with DSLite as it possibly could be used as a feature component to be marketed to people. But there's another side to this, once the world moves to IPv6 then IPv4 will be useless, so it's a feature that will probably be removed before it's ever as good as it could be.
There might not be a huge problem with CGNat (DSLite) here in the UK. Virgin have waited so long that by the time IPv6 rolls out on their network, all connections from outside VM will be IPv6 enabled. I personally have hardware that will never be IPv6 unless it's replaced (Solar Inverter, SIP VoIP Phone). Nintendo have clung on to IPv4 only devices for far too long now, so a lot of those users are really going to feel the pain. I would imagine that security cameras and media streamers will be a big issue for a lot of people too.
I think CGNAT will cause issues for those users that want to supply their own services eg serve up http/s for their own use.
Yes, you could argue that they shouldn't be doing it on dynamic IP's etc but most consumer grade routers have dynamic DNS to overcome this and allow consumers to serve up what they want.
From my understanding, CGNAT will prevent this unless each customer is mapped to a unique IPv4 public IP address. Yes, for most users who don't do this, they won't see any difference apart from any CGNAT teething problems.
This is why I think that for users who want the ability to serve up their own services ie accept incoming IPv4 connections, VM will charge them a premium by forcing them to switch to something like business and use a GRE tunnel etc to tunnel an IPv4 network via the IPv6 network. Alternatively, they could use an outside provider for this.... again at a cost.
So my guess is they will rollout IPv6 with CGNAT for IPv4 at no extra cost for residential users. If you want anything more exotic, you will have to pay a premium for it or go elsewhere. I suspect the vanilla user will see no difference and hence there won't be a mass migration of consumers due to the CGNAT limitations.
It will be interesting to see what they do for the business users, especially on the Voom side of things. These users currently use a GRE tunnel to separate their traffic from the consumer side of things and allow a specific IPv4 subnet to be supplied to the end user with full NAT as it is now.
With those users, I suspect the GRE tunnel will still be supplied (at no extra cost) and the endpoint IP's will simply change to IPv6.Taking the above into account, I suspect that anybody on residential VM who want's full IPv4 NAT after the switch to IPv6, will be forced to switch to Virgin Business or something similar at a premium to retain the same capabilities.
louis-m wrote:Would modem mode matter here? You would simply put give your router an IPv6 address and then distribute from there. I don't see it being too big an issue.
If you are happy with the SuperHub firewall and its rules and whatever limited prefix delegation (likely just a single /64) it would provide then this might work for you.
For me I want a plain Ethernet connection with plain DHCP provided IPv4 /32 (as now) or DHCPv6/SLAAC provided IPv6 /56 (in the future). I'll provide the firewall in the same way I provide the locks on my house. If others are happy with a US multinational providing the locks on their house then on their head be it.
If Virgin can't or won't continue to deliver this service then I'll seek another provider even if it means going slower for a bit (my BT pole hasn't been upgraded to G.Fast yet).
Am looking at IDnet as it has native IPv6 and also has DNS over TLS. The one downside is the speed compared to virgin. But if thay force router mode on us I will definitely be moving to IDnet.
Looking at FTTP Unlimited 80/20 £45.60 per monthAs I use Asus RT-AX88U with Asuswrt-Merlin / Diversion | Skynet / Stubby | Pixelserv-tls So having the Hub 3 in router mode is a non starter. For me
I'm only guessing there so can't be sure how they would roll it out. I'm on VMB Voom 3 and using 5 statics. I envisage I will wake up one morning and there will be an upgraded Hitron router with an IPv6 address. My Ipv4's will remain the same. Not sure how the IPv6 will be different to residential or even if it will be?
Perhaps the Voom 3 will become vanilla IPv6 and a GRE Full Ipv4 NAT (business) as opposed to IPv6 and CGNAT IPv4 (residential)?And leaving VM because of this will become anybodies prerogative with the trade in of speed etc but I wouldn't expect to see a mass exodus just because they aren't supplying modem mode which I'm guessing only a small percentage of their users actually use.
The suggestion that VM would remove modem mode in order to force a DS-lite solution confirms what I have always thought of VM. That they know better than their customers as to what customers actually need.
I want IPv4, not all the ISPs offer IPv6, so need connectivity when I am on client sites, holiday etc. aAfirewall that works. I need VPN connectivity, I need to be able to securely expose home devices to the internet. Looks like I am going to have to give up vivid 350 for a 3Mb FTTC.
Modem mode isn't necessarily the issue here in terms of not being able to use your own router. It makes it more complicated, but in theory under DS-Lite, you could still broadcast the IPv6 prefix provided across your LAN without modem mode, it's just more technical and modem mode was useful to basically remove the whole double NAT scenario. However given DS-Lite looks to be the solution, double NAT won't be a problem but then that's because you won't be able to do NAT in the first place anymore! Sneaky move there.
It is disappointing that Virgin Media has chosen this solution. On the one hand it makes sense because it's parent Liberty Global has been doing this across Europe, so it's not exactly going to do a whole different IPv6 implementation for the UK. I don't personally like it considering the likes of BT/Sky implemented dual stack which in my opinion is the better way to go for all involved. This will basically ruin the party for any gamers, user hosted servers etc behind an existing VM connection. Clearly Virgin Media think their core customer base isn't doing this on-mass. Virgin Media will probably argue that if you want do that kind of stuff the business plans are going to be "solution". I can (to a point) understand the whole, hosted services/servers scenario, but gamers wanting open NAT types having to go down business type plans? I mean I guess Virgin Media kind of positions the Vivid 200 package as "for gamers" but is it going to be any different than the rest of the residential VIVID plans? It's not ever clear if VM business plans will provide a IPv4 that's not CGNAT/shared either.
Given the news coming out, sounds like I'm going to be clinging onto my SH2 with an IPv6 tunnel for a while yet, DS-Lite sounds like a trainwreck for the more technical enthusiast level people on VM right now. The sad thing is there are plenty of other providers which have a more sane IPv6 implementations but the lack the comparative speed offerings. Who knows, maybe we are in the minority 1% that the 99% of VM customers won't notice or even care about. I'd love to know what the trials concluded and the feedback.
Funny how this has been going on for 9 years and now that IPv6 support on Virgin Media is likely inbound soon, no one wants it, not in this form anyway!
Hopefully customers will be able to opt out of IPv6 in order to continue using modem mode, this is something offered by LIberty Global's UPC service in mainland Europe. If the choice is modem mode or IPv6 i'd happily choose modem mode.
100% would also opt-out of DS-Lite and continue using my Hurricane Electric tunnel with a /64 routed prefix and keep my semi-static IPv4 which is actually routed to me for sure!
But what would you do if VM turned around and said "yes, you can have an IPv6 /48 prefix & Full Nat Ipv4" for £5 extra per month?
Would people take that offer up?
Currently, we are only guessing and I'm guessing how they would switch me over on Voom 3 with minimal interruption which I think they could do right now as my IPv4 statics are getting served via GRE. Maybe they have planned it like this for a while and if I'm honest, it kind of makes sense from a deployment point of view.
Maybe they will switch residential over and wait for those to kick up who want modem mode and then give them the two options ie switch to something like above or as mentioned go back to IPv4 until they totally pull it?
Timwilky wrote:The suggestion that VM would remove modem mode in order to force a DS-lite solution confirms what I have always thought of VM. That they know better than their customers as to what customers actually need.
I want IPv4, not all the ISPs offer IPv6, so need connectivity when I am on client sites, holiday etc. aAfirewall that works. I need VPN connectivity, I need to be able to securely expose home devices to the internet. Looks like I am going to have to give up vivid 350 for a 3Mb FTTC.
Having Ipv6 only at home shouldn't be a big issue (as long as the home devices support Ipv6). It's really easy to find 4to6's out there, so no matter where you are right now those tunnels exist and are cheap/free. CGNat of any kind is likely to kill the likes of remote connection/vpn's, do bear in mind that many of the DSL providers out there are also moving to similar systems, the flip side to that is that other providers have been working on this problem for a long time and many allow you to opt out of CGNAT.
In my mind there are ways it could be addressed. Remove modem mode, and if the router see's any port forwarding rules (manual or UPnP) then change that connection to a non-nat setup. 4in6 with everyone having their own IP (This has been shot down by others here, but I still cant see how that wouldn't be possible).
I think Virgin moving to IPv6 will help push content providers to be more IPv6 Centric, Talk-Talk are trying just like VM to not make this move, but once VM and TT make the move then UK connectivity will be great and hopefully we will see everyone else shift along with it.
CGNat is bad, but VM (and TT) bods were dumb enough to sit on IPv6 until it was forced on them due to IPv4 running out (If they really have "Ran out").
What came first, the chicken or the egg? In VM's world it was the Chicken and Egg fried rice. DOH.
louis-m wrote:But what would you do if VM turned around and said "yes, you can have an IPv6 /48 prefix & Full Nat Ipv4" for £5 extra per month?
Would people take that offer up?
Currently, we are only guessing and I'm guessing how they would switch me over on Voom 3 with minimal interruption which I think they could do right now as my IPv4 statics are getting served via GRE. Maybe they have planned it like this for a while and if I'm honest, it kind of makes sense from a deployment point of view.
Maybe they will switch residential over and wait for those to kick up who want modem mode and then give them the two options ie switch to something like above or as mentioned go back to IPv4 until they totally pull it?
I doubt anything will change for business users.
You will likely be able to keep your IPv4 and get assigned IPv6. They were two different beast at one time, I am not sure about now but I would suspect that the separation will continue. IPv6 has some issues that happen early on too, so If I was them then the testing of that would be done on residential users before a business rollout :P.
oooohhhhh - 26/01/19 = 20111
past the 20k barrier!!
