Virgin Media Community

[pjpickering]

Hi,

Reading this thread it is obvious that Virginmedia are not looking to implement IPv6 in the near future, however in the meantime you can install IPv6 Tunnels via a broker (I used http://gogonet.gogo6.com/) to tide you over until Virginmedia do implement it fully on their network

Phil

www.dragonf.com

[CarlTSpeak]

---

@VMCopperUser wrote:

It's likely that ALL sites out there today will still be reachable in 10+ years using IPv4..

Virgin Media will have more than enough ipv4 Addys to give out to customers until they go bankrupt and nationalized...

The issue (as is, and as will be, that VM will not talk about) is new startups that are ipv6 Only.. Lets not forget that startups such as Myspace, Youtube, and LOTS of broadcasting sites are fairly new. 

The ISP doesnt care right now because customers aren't impacted.  Sadly (with VM) this means that they will probably migrate when half the userbase is ticked off because they cant reach some new fangled site that's in Alexa's top 10..

Then they'll start doing catch-up and tell us how hard they are working for us ;P...

The equipment VM has listed before shows that their headend should be ipv6 compliant, most of the modems and routers they provide are compliant (with patches), so if VM says they are not ready, then it means that their core fibre network must not be ready :/...

Spooky thought that.

---

Call me cynical but I can't see any site that's IPv6 only getting into Alexa's top 10 any time soon given how small a fraction of all ISPs worldwide have IPv6 support currently or imminently.

About 60% claim they'll have it ready for consumers this year however this isn't 60% by customer numbers and that's the rub, the really big guys in the consumer space aren't moving as quickly.

[pjpickering]

IPv6 has been around for the better part of 2 decades and yes there hasn't been any movement on the ISP front, however we are to the point where new companies who require IP's are going to start having to "Bid" for them which will have a cascading effect in the push for v6.

I think ISP's aren’t wanting to move to them until they have to for a number or reasons (you can see the similarity to investing in alternative energy to oil, un-related but valid) including financial reasons and gaining to skill set etc...

Noting the above I am very surprised that Mobile providers aren’t going down the route sooner as IPv6 does have large advantages for mobile roaming!

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, are all on-board with the IPv6 Roll out, and they are the leaders so there will be more to follow very shortly!

The only thing the end-user can do to speed their roll out is to proceed via a tunnel broker or use 6to4 until the ISP is in a position to offer Native IPv6 to it's customers.

Phil

----------------------------------

Phil's Blog: www.dragonf.com - I set my IPv6 Tunnel up in just a day!

[chrcoluk]

how does a typical website get setup?

hobbyist sites, small business etc. will likely use a hosting provider or even their broadband isp to host a website, in both cases there is no bidding for ip's and in all likelyhood they wont even need a new ip and wont be assigned one either as after all web hosting can hosts 1000s of sites on a single ip no problem.  Unlike end user connections websites can share ip's with no significant downside.

If a site outgrows shared hosting or perhaps someone doesnt want to go that route from day 1 then they may get a dedicated server and host their website on that, in this case the chances are the datacentre hosting that server will provide ip's, these ip's may come from a new assigned pool or  may come from old servers that have been canceleed so recycled ip's.  I am seeing some dc's tighten up their policies on ipv4 now but i dont expect any to have actually ran out within the next few years at least as these same dc's still usually allow large amounts on request but they just have stopped giving them out by default.  Ultimately one ip is enough to host a website, dns server, email server etc.

Large hosting company, isp, large business basically anyone who is likely to have their own ip allocation, these people will likely be already having a harder time of it at getting new ip ranges however I expect most in this group will already have plenty of unused ip's and prepared for this situation before hand.

What may be an interesting outcome is traditionally website hosting is dirt cheap a completely saturated market but if the day ever comes that one can no longer get their own ipv4 for a website or server then existing ipv4's may start to command a premium.

[Adys]

Well, this post is the first result on googling "virgin media ipv6". It's sad to see there's nothing planned at all.. Is there anywhere else the community can show VM its interest in ipv6 support?

[karen_cookson]

Hi

Virgin got a block of IPv6 addresses in Feb 2011, so there is movement from a pretty late start

Karen

[CarlTSpeak]

Not really as far as showing 'interest' goes.

It's a network protocol, showing interest in it isn't going to be mainstream until not having it present causes issues with the applications running on top, which isn't happening right now.

I work in IT myself and have very little interest in IPv6 beyond needing to know it to do my job in the future. Just another thing to learn in order to get the job done. Likely the same attitude that VM and everyone else without a pressing and urgent need for IPv6 is taking.

It costs time, money, resources to deploy this stuff, satiating the IPv6 cravings of people showing 'interest' isn't going to be the business case that makes it happen.

[Morgaine]

The problem with this long-lived thread is that it's in a Help & Support forum.

No VM product manager is going to be looking here to estimate interest in IPv6, no VM sales or marketting person is going to be reading this to tell the PMs that IPv6 would provide good advertising or PR, no VM tech will be looking here to gain support for VM leading on this technology in the UK, etc.  Nobody who can influence IPv6 rollout in VM will ever see this thread.  The support staff are undoubtedly far too busy doing support, and in a large organization like VM they're probably not even allowed to talk to the relevant people on our behalf.

The real question we should be asking is:  Who do we contact to bring this matter to the fore?

It's not as if this were a feature for the distant future.  IPv4 Zero Day occurred back in February and the last IPv4 blocks were allocated to the regions exactly as predicted.  While IPv4 won't collapse immediately because of this, we do need IPv6 *right now* to move forward using dual stacks.  Not having native IPv6 support in VM is already blocking progress.  Tunnels just don't cut it.

Dear Support peeps, who in the appropriate divisions of VM can we contact to express our need?

Morgaine.

[chrcoluk]

Some major isp's overseas have started playing with native ipv6, which does indicate VM are perhaps been a bit too slack on it, but on the main point I agree with ignition that its only very few people crrently putting time into ipv6.  I have ipv6 ranges on some of my servers but they are not used for any type of production use only for testing at current.

[Morgaine]

Well "interest" is a chicken and egg thing.  There is no interest from non-tech users when they can't get to IPv6 sites natively and transparently, and there is no interest from providers when they see no significant users with IPv6 access.  In the absence of other factors, this would be a deadly embrace around IPv4.

But there is another factor, and it cannot be ignored:  we're (almost) out of IPv4 addresses.

While some providers will attempt to put bandaid over bandaid to try to keep IPv4 alive beyond its sell-by date, this will be costlier and costlier as the solutions get ever more contrived, and it's ultimately pointless because the money could just as easily be put into dual-stack IPv6 to allow graceful evolution without horrible hacks.

Some smaller ISPs in the UK already provide native IPv6, but no top tier ISP here has done so yet.  It would be good for VM to be a leader in this, and I think it's up to us to get the message through.

Morgaine.