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IPv6 support on Virgin media

dgcarter
Dialled in

Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?

1,493 REPLIES 1,493


@ksim wrote:

We already discussed that, created a separate topic in support. VM is shaping proto-41, confirmed by other users, reported to VM with all pieces of evidence and information they asked, but they are incompetent to check or understand. even fixing routing took them months, during this time they were saying that routing traffic to London to London through Germany is intended, and the following BGP in your exchanges is for losers.


So your talking about the 6in4 throttling that some people (me included) were seeing.

VM said that they were not doing that, but while I think it's great forum staff sometimes reach out for answers, I do doubt some of them reach out far enough to find out if it's true or fake.

I seem to remember that the speeds on that would jump up and down, and HE said it's not their network.  Sadly VM didn't seem interested in investigating the problem, and users can't fully find out where the fault is.  There might be a technical explanation that's valid, but without a knowledgeable (or caring) tech the answer will never be found.  There are, I think, some QoS filters that run in the hubs that users can't see nor turn on or off.  Not saying that's the problem, but who knows.  We are heavy users (1.4tb/month atm) and honestly see no throttling to speak of, I can't see why they would throttle VPN/Tunnels when they don't throttle heavy users.  So until someone discovers the problem I am going to assume it's not intentional (By VM at least).

----
I do not work for VM, but I would. It is just a Job.
Most things I say I make up and sometimes it's useful, don't be mean if it's wrong.
I would also make websites for them, because the job never seems to require the website to work.


@VMCopperUser wrote:

but while I think it's great forum staff sometimes reach out for answers, I do doubt some of them reach out far enough to find out if it's true or fake.

I tried not only this forum, phone support, the same level of incompetence, and I also called network engineers directly using contacts from the peering database. And the level is not that far from the forum staff.

We are heavy users (1.4tb/month atm) and honestly see no throttling to speak of, I can't see why they would throttle VPN/Tunnels when they don't throttle heavy users.  So until someone discovers the problem I am going to assume it's not intentional (By VM at least).


I am not saying that they are throttling on purpose, I fully agree they are throttling connections because of incompetence. it is clear that TCP and UDP are not throttled as it would create a lot of noise from the user's side, but there are other 100+ protocols where most of the users won't notice.


@DJ_Shadow1966 wrote:

With regards to IPv6 VM did trail it a while ago and never took off, VM decided in the UK that as they have enough IPv4 addresses themselves


Perfect proof of incompetence on all levels, IPv6 is not solving the shortage of IPv4, it just CAN'T as the protocols are not compatible. The shortage of IPv4 can be solved only by NAT. Take a look at cellphone mobile operators, they have small IPv4 pools and a lot of moving clients, are they early adopters of IPv6? Nope, they just did NAT, and this even not noticed by clients.

WiteWulf
On our wavelength

While they may not be actively throttling, they could well be applying traffic prioritisation at different parts of their network. In this model you typically see a number of tiers of importance applied to different traffic types, with DNS requests, VOIP and gaming traffic taking highest priority (as they’re latency sensitive). There’s often a “scavenger class” at the bottom of the list that’s essentially “everything else” and takes lowest priority. It may well be that the proto41 traffic is falling into the scavenger class and getting squashed by other traffic. 

Note I said “at different parts of their network”. You may well see traffic being deprioritised on links further upstream even if your own link is far from saturated. 

For most customers, IPv4 still does the job.  For example, there are virtually no websites which are not accessible via IPv4 - https://ungleich.ch/en-us/cms/blog/2019/02/05/list-of-ipv6-only-services/

Anonymous
Not applicable

I begin to understand what the bowl of petunias in the Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy felt like...

... is there any merit in comparing VM/LG to the Sperm Whale and Magrathea to the IPv6 connected future-Internet?

==========================================================================
If MS Windows is the answer then you may not be asking the right question.


@WiteWulf wrote:

While they may not be actively throttling, they could well be applying traffic prioritisation at different parts of their network. In this model you typically see a number of tiers of importance applied to different traffic types, with DNS requests, VOIP and gaming traffic taking highest priority (as they’re latency sensitive). There’s often a “scavenger class” at the bottom of the list that’s essentially “everything else” and takes lowest priority. It may well be that the proto41 traffic is falling into the scavenger class and getting squashed by other traffic. 

Note I said “at different parts of their network”. You may well see traffic being deprioritised on links further upstream even if your own link is far from saturated. 


I suspect something like this happening also. I recently did some testing with the same IPv4 tunnel endpoint configured on a Linode VPS, the performance of the HE.net tunnel side is more than capable of fast speeds, something in Virgin Media's network is doing something to 6in4. If I only get 1/10 of my line speed on 6in4 for 1 GB download test, yet a Linode VPS on a 10 gigabit backbone shows what the tunnel side is really capable of, I think we know where the problem might be!


@Optimist1 wrote:

For most customers, IPv4 still does the job.  For example, there are virtually no websites which are not accessible via IPv4 - https://ungleich.ch/en-us/cms/blog/2019/02/05/list-of-ipv6-only-services/


Web Sites can sit behind a single IP because of the hosts header.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7230#section-5.4

For "most" customers I agree that you can have something that will roughly work.  For "many" customers they will be confused why things don't work well.  For "some" customers the service will be missing many functions.

Without all services working, you don't have a full internet service.  Yes you could go to Indian restaurant to have a curry and find that it doesn't serve rice.  "Most" customers could find something to eat, "many" customers would wonder what's going on, "some" would say it's not a proper Indian restaurant.

----
I do not work for VM, but I would. It is just a Job.
Most things I say I make up and sometimes it's useful, don't be mean if it's wrong.
I would also make websites for them, because the job never seems to require the website to work.

Thing is the majority of the customer base doesn't care nor benefit from IPv6, so there isn't really any incentive for them to bother rolling it out other than as a marketing bulletpoint

So i wouldn't expect them to push for it too much