Virgin Media Community

[jamesmacwhite]

I'd trust what BT say over EE, although ironically owned by the same company, so go figure on the FTTP availability discrepancy. If you haven't already try putting in your address details into:

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

If it says FTTP available (Not FTTPoD, that's a different product and very costly!) you might be in luck. If not, you won't be getting FTTP from any provider using Openreach, as the infrastructure isn't there from Openreach to begin with no matter what EE say.

You can also use Openreach's website: https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband and check availability. Again, if it doesn't say FTTP is available in your area you are likely SOL and the reason why Virgin Media has many customers because they lack an Openreach or alt net alternative capable of proper fibre not fake FTTC "Superfast" whatever fibre.

There are some edge cases where the database can be wrong of course, but more often than not it's fairly accurate and should answer the question.

[fyonn]

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@jamesmacwhite wrote:

I'd trust what BT say over EE, although ironically owned by the same company, so go figure on the FTTP availability discrepancy. If you haven't already try putting in your address details into:

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

If it says FTTP available (Not FTTPoD, that's a different product and very costly!) you might be in luck. If not, you won't be getting FTTP from any provider using Openreach, as the infrastructure isn't there from Openreach to begin with no matter what EE say.

You can also use Openreach's website: https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband and check availability. Again, if it doesn't say FTTP is available in your area you are likely SOL and the reason why Virgin Media has many customers because they lack an Openreach or alt net alternative capable of proper fibre not fake FTTC "Superfast" whatever fibre.

There are some edge cases where the database can be wrong of course, but more often than not it's fairly accurate and should answer the question.

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I very much do trust BT more than EE, and EE don't support ipv6 either so I wouldn't be going with them anyway.

Looking at those URL's, I can't use the first one as I don't have a phone number to put in and I don't know what the other identifiers are.

On the second URL, I've put in my address and it tells me that I can have Suprtfast (80Mbps) or GFast (330Mmps). The latter one sounds good and when I check the BT site, it's now offering me fibre 250 which it wasn't doing before... so maybe the manager of my local EE store has done what he promised?

Any recommendations for a GFast supporting ISP which supports ipv6 and isn't too expensive?

[jamesmacwhite]

The wholesale checker supports address lookup as well, by default it will want you to use a BT phone number as it can be more accurate but there's a tab to switch to address lookup. The BT wholesale checker will give you a more detailed breakdown of the services and estimated speeds and such, but based on the results from the Openreach database if you are in an area with G.Fast, then you'll have better speeds than normal FTTC but it isn't FTTP and is actually being phased out in favour of FTTP, however not exactly a bad option. It can deliver speeds better than the typical 80 Mbps of FTTC and if it can reach the advertised speeds to your premises, then potentially an option (it can vary though as it's still using FTTC).

A few ISPs that come to mind are BT, Sky, Andrews and Arnold, Zen, Aquiss are a few that are all IPv6 enabled, that is by no means an exhaustive list, but some of the major ISPs I'm aware of, that use Openreach.

You certainly might have a viable option if G.Fast is in your area.

[fyonn]

thanks very much. I see the address checker now and it works. the top four lines are vdsl (clean and impacted) and gfast (clean and impacted). there is another line that talks about FTTP on demand and says available, but then a line later which says that it's not available..

I've checked some of the ISP's and interestingly, some offer 270meg plus, and some top out at 150meg plus.. not sure why. I like the idea of A&A as a very geeky ISP who would do things like RDNS etc, but they are pricey, have a data cap and only topping out at 150. zen gets good rep but is also £10pm more than I'm paying now (and £20pm more than I was paying several months ago). there's always talktalk... am I right to be leery or have they cleaned up their act? broadband is only a utility for me these days as I sort out other services elsewhere. Can you have all this without a phoneline?

Also, I use my own router (Ubiquiti UDM) can I ditch their router and use my own, or do I need a modem mode or similar? thanks for the help.

[jamesmacwhite]

Here's a little bit of a breakdown of the data from the checker, if you aren't familiar with the information from the wholesale checker.

• VDSL - As you probably know already, standard "super fibre" FTTC packages. Depending on area the max clean rating usually is 80 mbps, varies based on distance from the cabinet.
• G.Fast - FTTC but using short local loops allowing faster speeds above your normal FTTC packages, usually over 100 mbps and above. Typically depending on how close you are to the cabinet will determine how fast you can get over G.Fast. Sounds like you are getting a rough range between 150 Mbps to 250 Mbps on average which isn't too bad.
• FTTPoD (Fibre to the Premise on Demand) - Basically, if you have unlimited funds you can essentially get FTTP to your premise and however many other properties that your build would pass. This is a very costly and lengthy option because you essentially pay the construction and build costs for the FTTP infrastructure to be implemented, you also enter into a very expensive contract for the initial phase of having a FTTP connection before you can drop down to a standard price (usually within 1-3 years). Not really worth entertaining unless you absolutely want FTTP at any cost! While more suited to businesses, some residential customers with serious bank have done it. The stories and estimates some have got are fun to read! Often they have shared the cost with the neighbourhood though to make it more viable.

Andrews and Arnold are probably the best ISP in the space that actually know their stuff and networking terminology ksim was poking fun at some VM Engineers about earlier, Zen is also a solid choice based on what I've heard.

TalkTalk don't do IPv6 as far as I know so probably not an option.

I believe G.Fast is possible without a phone line usually referred to as SOGEA, but it will be up to the provider. In a lot of cases you'll likely be getting a phone line as G.Fast is still using the FTTC infrastructure. I know EE has more recently launched broadband services without it, I know Sky do this as well, but sadly no IPv6 on EE home broadband still I believe. The mobile network however has been IPv6 for a while now. 5G broadband is potentially an alternative if you're in a good coverage area, considering 5G can rival some FTTP packages speed wise but mobile broadband isn't necessarily a good choice for hosting services. Example, EE firewall all inbound on their IPv6 mobile network and IPv4 is through CGNAT, equally if the consumer side is still the same, they didn't offer anything more than /64 prefix.

For FTTC broadband, you might have to get a G.Fast VDSL cable modem separately (one example Vigor), as most of the ISPs will likely provide some router/modem combo which may or may not support bridge/modem mode, but some of the more techy ISPs will likely provide CPE that has this already, so it may vary.

Sounds like you might have some research to do. Feel free to message me, might be banned at this rate for advertising non Virgin Media options 😮

[VMCopperUser]

That Availability checker is similar to the old openreach one.

Basically, any provider that uses Openreach will be tied to the products listed in that chart.

FTTPoD is quite expensive for most people, but you could try to get a quote (Install would likely be towards end of the year!), after a fixed term with FTTPoD then your line becomes FTTP with Openreach so you can then move to any provider with any of their FTTP packages.  Again - It's not cheap.

Some areas do have other providers who run their own lines - but this would require you to look that up.

https://labs2.thinkbroadband.com/local/postcode-search is a okay resource.

Use the https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/broadband-map to see if anyone really close to you has FTTP, if they don't then the cost is probably too high to even look at FTTPoD.

[jamesmacwhite]

Looks like someone else has discovered the IPv6 Router Advertisements that are hiding if you know how to enable them. They reported being able to configure working IPv6 on VM Business. I have also found this is the case on the residential side too, using modem mode.

https://twitter.com/lukegb/status/1392550938037166082

It goes back to my post here: https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/IPv6-support-on-Virgin-media/m-p/4670393/.... Speaking with someone from Liberty Global a while back, the IPv6 configuration has likely been active for a while it seems. However because there is no response to a DHCPv6 request, a router normally won't pick up anything so unless you dig into it, it goes undetected.

The person on Twitter went one step further and assigned themselves an IPv6 address based on the RA received and it does in fact work. Obviously doing this is completely unsupported given the lack of a customer prefix delegation so manually assigning an address like this has no guarantee it has actually been assigned to you. Assigning a IPv6 address manually technically works if you assign one within the correct subnet. The original poster notes:

• No IPv6 direct peering with Cloudflare (the traffic goes via Telia instead)
• Comcast IPv6 is completely inaccessible at the moment (although this might be just transient, apparently Liberty Global were having some "difficulties" configuring their networking equipment earlier...)

https://www.reddit.com/r/VirginMedia/comments/nb5a2j/virgin_media_ipv6_deployment_smells_close/

I'm not sure this is necessarily a sign of a roll out as I believe the IPv6 RAs have been hiding behind the scenes for a while. In the case of OpenWrt, you need to tweak /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/{$wan_if}/accept_ra to 2, for the Virgin Media IPv6 routes to be added to the routing table. By default this is 0 and therefore you'd never see them normally.

[TonyJr]

According to a planned works email: ‘Docsis 3.1 and DS configuration’...

[fyonn]

(not done anything yet)

so.. do O2 know how to implement ipv6 do you think?

[jamesmacwhite]

Judging by the O2 forums. Similar story on IPv6 related discussions, even on the mobile network.

Although as we've found more recently, it appears VM do in fact have an IPv6 enabled network active. If you know what you are doing you can unofficially just assign yourself an IPv6 address in the valid range provided by the Router Advertisements. Of course, completely experimental but it confirms IPv6 is there and dual stack is technically possible right now.

We must assume Virgin Media currently are filtering out DHCPv6/SLAAC traffic, so it's not really usable by normal means, you'd also need to have your own router to even test it currently as the Hub firmware will definitely stop you from being able to pick up the RAs that are being broadcast on the WAN when you look closely.

 00:00:03.799837 IP6 (hlim 255, next-header ICMPv6 (58) payload length: 80) fe80::201:5cff:fe9c:2847 > ip6-allnodes: [icmp6 sum ok] ICMP6, router advertisement, length 80
        hop limit 0, Flags [managed, other stateful], pref medium, router lifetime 9000s, reachable time 3600000ms, retrans timer 0ms
          prefix info option (3), length 32 (4): 2a02:8800:f000:18b0::/64, Flags [onlink], valid time 2592000s, pref. time 604800s
            0x0000:  4080 0027 8d00 0009 3a80 0000 0000 2a02
            0x0010:  8800 f000 18b0 0000 0000 0000 0000
          prefix info option (3), length 32 (4): 2a02:88fd:18:a::/64, Flags [onlink], valid time infinity, pref. time infinity
            0x0000:  4080 ffff ffff ffff ffff 0000 0000 2a02
            0x0010:  88fd 0018 000a 0000 0000 0000 0000

• 2a02:8800:f000:18b0::/64 - Looks to be a management network and internal, isn't reachable on IPv6 internet unless on VM network.
• 2a02:88fd:18:a::/64 - A global routed prefix that you can technically use and assign yourself an IPv6 address within. This will be different for each customer/area I believe.