IPv6 support on Virgin media

[dgcarter]

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

[ksim]

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@aleksmariusz wrote:

Virgin Media network engineers, you've got some explaining to do.. 

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Ha-ha, good luck.

they will tell you:

I can confirm that we do not traffic manage/ traffic shape our broadband connections, however VPN and other forms of tunnel connection are not supported and we cannot guarantee a perfect connection between points.

We are not discussing here how we can make IPv6 work, everyone who needed it got it either using VPN or changed broadband provider, we are only laughing on VM staff incompetence here. How they are telling: that no one needs IPv6, that VM has plenty of IPv4 addresses and will never need IPv6, proto 41 is single-threaded, how IPv6 is insecure and they are not implementing it because every user will be hacked. I lost my hope with VM ages ago.

[jmorby]

tbh I'm kind of new to VM ... I've worked at other ISPs for the last 30+ years and have been present many a time when Virgin talked about how they were rolling out IPv6 .. so I kinda just assumed (yes I know what assumption did) they'd have got the job done by now.  Even BT has managed to do it for God's sake!

So I fired up a new VM at a remote ISP as I needed somewhere to test/develop some code and low and behold it's IPv6 only.  Not a problem I thought, who needs IPv4 these days anyway.  Turns out I do as my new Virgin link doesn't do IPv6 .. wth Virgin?!!

Now I know my company was fairly advanced had we had 6BONE and then full IPv6 from the very early days and one of the first things I did was make sure that the ISP I was at was IPv6 capable across their network ... so I'm a little spoiled ... and thankfully I do have backup connections to home which, whilst slow (FTTC) are fully dual stacked so I can still do IPv6 / etc ... but really Virgin ... 2020 and still no IPv6?

Shocking!

[jamesmacwhite]

Since mid 2018 with the wider IPv6 customer trials, things went very quiet.

Virgin Media have tested IPv6 through DS-Lite which seems to be the norm with Liberty Global across Europe, however there is no word on if they'll actually roll it out. There were rumors they might abandon DS-Lite and go dual stack like BT/Sky and this is the reason for the delay but no one in the public domain knows for sure. Mark at ISPreview was going to see if he could get an update from Virgin Media about their plans given it's now 1.5 years since the IPv6 trials happened.

Personally if it is DS-Lite, I'm not moving from modem mode, as it sounds like if you have the DS-Lite config applied, the modem mode option is hidden/removed in the interface menu. This is due to lack of support for DS-Lite in most off the shelf routers. The latest firmware on the SuperHub 3 has hints and clues to the IPv6/DS-Lite config hiding in the JavaScript files, so it seems likely it's going to be DS-Lite.

For now, your options are IPv6 tunnel (Although be aware 6in4 has performance issues on VM's network), roll your own Wireguard/OpenVPN VPS and pass a routed prefix over the tunnel or a major VPN provider that supports IPv6, a couple I know are Mullvad and Perfect Privacy, although be aware some VPN providers will only provide a ULA prefix and use NAT6, so it's not pure IPv6 either (Mullvad does this).

[VMCopperUser]

I don't get why the DS-Lite portion couldn't happen before the WAN output.  So in modem mode your router would just pick up both a v4 and v6.

Truthfully, there's no extra profit to be made in them adding IPv6.  It's a useless bolt on to them as it does nothing (in their eyes) but cost money.  Just look at Email, they have tried to offload that more than once too and failed horribly.

[jamesmacwhite]

I guess modem mode isn't absolutely required. Technically even if your router didn't support DS-Lite you could still take advantage of IPv6 prefix delegation and have your own router behind of the Super Hub, which is likely to provide something like a dynamic /56 (based on other ISPs doing deployments). Then your own router obtains a prefix from within the /56, maybe a /61 and then this then distributed down across your LAN. It won't be as simple as Modem Mode currently is but if you've got a bit of knowledge on networking, it's certainly possible to do, without having to worry about direct DS-Lite support. It does add two routers into the path, but given IPv6 is all about that end to end connectivity life, double NAT isn't an issue anymore, which primarily is what modem mode prevents for IPv4, as well as using your own kit for DHCP, WiFi etc etc.

The key factor though is VM will be forcing technical users to make a choice under the DS-Lite config. Native IPv6 and sacrifice your routed IPv4 or stay IPv4 only and keep modem mode on. They've always boasted they've got loads of IPv4 space, I doubt they'll be getting rid of it, so if some customers are defiant and stay IPv4 in modem mode, I'd imagine they'll let you. New customers will probably get the DS-Lite config by default if they ever launch it. Virgin Media Ireland seem to do this and you can request to go back to IPv4 only.

I'd imagine Virgin Media could "enable" IPv6 on anyone's Super Hub 3 right now, the firmware has all the support for the DS-Lite config. It would require them to either push a firmware build with the DS-Lite IPv6 functionality enabled by default and not be in modem mode, like the IPv6 trial criteria was, I believe it can be an upstream config setting on their side though.

[Timwilky]

The imposition of ds--lite woulld be sufficient for me to abandon my 500Mb VM for whatever I can get on 4g. I am 6 miles from the exchange with aluminium cable from the hole in the ground to the house.  No FTTP so about 1.9Mb. Hence 4g is my next bet after VM.

My home is about 50% dual stack. with my v6 tunnel from HE from my pfSense firewall giving me a /64 on the LAN.. I have about 15 devices running Tasmota which are IPv4 only. But they are all internet exposed through a reverse proxy with SSL encryption. So GC-NAT is no good for me. I work in locations that are IPv4 only. I need to be able to connect to my home resouces byIPv4.

I have a Nord VPN, so perhaps their static end point is my other option to guarentee my IPv4 conectivity.

[jamesmacwhite]

4G would be a sideways move though, because all mobile carriers will be using CGNAT, so similar to the proposed DS-Lite implementation, IPv4 will not be directly routed to you, same problem. 5G with good coverage can absolutely smash a lot of fixed line providers (up to 300Mbps) but it's new, expensive and coverage is lower (much like 4G in the early days). Equally CGNAT is still in play. Most mobile carriers also inbound firewall IPv6 as well, so you'll not have much luck there.

Similar to you, FTTP is unlikely to be in my area anytime soon and FTTPoD will cost a small fortune. There would be ways to essentially do the reverse and provide native IPv4 under DS-Lite, but it would be the same solutions, VPN, GRE tunnel etc.

One option would be VM Business. I doubt they'd do DS-Lite for their business lines. You'd probably also get a static /56 or maybe even a /48, but given the consumer IPv6 rollout has taken this long, I have no idea about what plans for VM business. Ironically though, I hear their IPv4 static solution uses a GRE tunnel and it's temperamental, so much so I've seen various stories about VM business customers reverting back to dynamic IPv4, just so they get better performance. I could live with a dynamic IPv4, with a fixed IPv6 prefix. Most of us have likely been doing it with DDNS for years. 

[jamesmacwhite]

Something more recent on the whole 6in4 speed issues saga, more recently there are reports in the Czech Republic that a similar issue is occurring on the UPC/Vodafone network, which Liberty Global have some hand in.

https://www.root.cz/clanky/pomale-ipv6-tunely-s-modemem-compal-od-upc-vodafone/nazory/ (In CZ, will need to be translated)

https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/hg4jn9/compal_ch7465lg_and_hurricane_electric_6to4/

It references an article I wrote about this specific issue, but interesting that this is also happening elsewhere, not just Virgin Media UK.

[ChrisJenkins]

I just switched to VM Business (500 Mbit/s) from a regular VM residential (350 Mbit/s) connection in the hope I could avoid their terrible throttling of protocol 41 traffic. Sadly, nothing has changed. Interestingly my 'Business' connection seems to be just the same connection as before but with a different router; even my dynamic IPv4 address did not change after the switchover...

I'm now trying to pursue the protocol 41 issue with VM; wish me luck (I am not optimistic)!

[TonyJr]

Good luck - that is what I did, but I gave up with asking about the throttling (that was a good few months ago). I am wondering if there is some kind of rate limiting directly on the peering connection, and if so, which side it is.

It has quite a detrimental impact on software and services that rely on CDNs for me.

I cannot fault the service other than that.