IPv6 support on Virgin media

[dgcarter]

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

[ChrisJenkins]

Yes, that would be the definition of Hell. I have my own internal DNS servers with over 50 IPv6 capable devices registered. The work involved in renumbering that lot, plus re-configuring the devices themselves, would be considerable. I may have to take that hit once, to move from HE IPv6 to VM native IPv6 (if it ever arrives!), but I certainly wouldn't want to do it with any regularity.

[lewislfoster]

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@TonyHoyle wrote:

I'm sure not even VM would be silly enough to attempt dynamic ipv6..  it's completely unnecessary and almost nothing would support it - you can't go around renumbering your entire network every day.

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this is virgin media we are talking about here

[jamesmacwhite]

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@TonyHoyle wrote:

I'm sure not even VM would be silly enough to attempt dynamic ipv6..  it's completely unnecessary and almost nothing would support it - you can't go around renumbering your entire network every day.

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I wouldn't be so sure. Even BT and Sky have dynamic IPv6 prefixes for residential, confirmed at IPv6 council meetings. Static is usually reserved for business type packages.

Pretty sure the DS-Lite IPv6 in Ireland was/is a dynamic prefix as well.

Here's an old post from a VM Ireland customer with their experiences of hosting behind DS-Lite over IPv6: https://flameeyes.blog/2016/10/29/running-services-on-virgin-media-ireland/

[TonyHoyle]

How would that even work?  90% of routers couldn't handle it.. you'd have to renumber your entire network every time it changed.. it would be utterly frustrating and nobody would want it.

The purpose of dynamic IP was shortage of IPs - it goes all the way back to dialup ISPs that had things like 256 IPs and 1000 customers .. somehow didn't go away with always on connections (well, it largely did, but some even quite big ISPs kept doing it - VM being one of them).

But dynamic ipv6?  That's crazy.  There are so many ipv6 prefixes it's complete nonsense to ration them.  Hell, I have 65,000 of them just for my house..

[jamesmacwhite]

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@TonyHoyle wrote:

How would that even work?  90% of routers couldn't handle it.. you'd have to renumber your entire network every time it changed.. it would be utterly frustrating and nobody would want it.

The purpose of dynamic IP was shortage of IPs - it goes all the way back to dialup ISPs that had things like 256 IPs and 1000 customers .. somehow didn't go away with always on connections (well, it largely did, but some even quite big ISPs kept doing it - VM being one of them).

But dynamic ipv6?  That's crazy.  There are so many ipv6 prefixes it's complete nonsense to ration them.  Hell, I have 65,000 of them just for my house..

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It's happening right now on a few major UK ISPs that have deployed IPv6. There are options for static IPv6 without business level tiers if you go with an ISP more focussed on catering for enthusiasts i.e. Andrews and Arnold but otherwise usually anything static is behind business level packages instead. I don't disagree with you on why it's a bad idea but dynamic IPv6 prefixes aren't really anything new. I have a 4G backup connection with EE, that doesn't do inbound IPv6 due to firewalling in the core network and that's got a dynamic IPv6 prefix and also provides a /64, so that's about as evil as it gets, but knowing the limitations it provides connectivity and that's it.

The dynamic nature isn't about the lack of addresses available. Here's a few possible reasons why some ISPs do it, I'm not saying I agree with these statements either, but the rationale often comes down either of:

1. A purely business decision and likely the most common. There is probably no technical reason why you couldn't have a static IPv6 prefix on a non business type package, it is mostly down to wanting to upsell it as an additional add-on or feature.

2. Back-end systems aren't set up right for static allocation on the residential operations side. Again, it probably could be done, but the ISP may argue cost vs benefit, if it's for typical usage cases, which I'd imagine most of the people in this thread are outside of.

3. Network operations may want the flexibility of being able to reallocate or reroute without going through a long and tedious process. Some providers will periodically change addressing so that customers don't assume it will stay the same forever. We know this is the case with Virgin Media IPv4 on residential lines, the IPv4 is dynamic, but doesn't really change too much unless certain factors occur. However just because it hasn't changed doesn't mean it won't and is never sold as static.

The ISP provided kit will have been tested to handle it otherwise it wouldn't be deployed. Dynamic IPv6 prefixes might not be changing every day, but likely similar to how IPv4 is, it can change, it probably won't for a while, but it could although I can see some BT Community Forum posts suggests it was changing a lot looking at posts. This wouldn't work well for those doing inbound services of course, but we've discussed ways you could do it i.e. static DHCPv6 leases based on the MAC, firewall rules that are prefix agnostic and based on the EUI-64 value of a host. The argument from any provider will be you'll be wanting a business package for that, as running inbound services is not the typical residential use case and technically hosting stuff on a residential connection has probably never really been a supported use case, it just so happens you can and people do it and the ISP doesn't really care or want to try and do anything about it, providing you pay the bill each month of course but as soon as you start seeing such issues, the upsell will be, "we've got a business package just for you".

I'd be very surprised if Virgin Media provided static anything for the residential packages without either a specific add-on or package change that was specifically catering for that use case, that includes IPv6 if it ever appears. I would absolutely love to be proven wrong if the time comes but I wouldn't be surprised if it was put it that way.

That's why it's super important for transparency and customer feedback on these things to get it right, but we know Virgin Media isn't interested in listening and they've been tone deaf on IPv6 for over 10 years in terms of public communication or providing information beyond canned statements. It is nice to chat to the regulars and new people joining in on all things IPv6 though, this has to be the longest running thread on the community forum by far! I always look forward to discussing all things IPv6 with other people that care like I do.

[VMCopperUser]

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@TonyHoyle wrote:

How would that even work?  90% of routers couldn't handle it.. you'd have to renumber your entire network every time it changed.. it would be utterly frustrating and nobody would want it.

The purpose of dynamic IP was shortage of IPs - it goes all the way back to dialup ISPs that had things like 256 IPs and 1000 customers .. somehow didn't go away with always on connections (well, it largely did, but some even quite big ISPs kept doing it - VM being one of them).

But dynamic ipv6?  That's crazy.  There are so many ipv6 prefixes it's complete nonsense to ration them.  Hell, I have 65,000 of them just for my house..

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Your correct, a dynamic Ipv6 would just be crazy.  While I wouldn't demand a "static" IPv6 it should be super-sticky.  So if they need/want to assign specific blocks to specific areas and resegmentation changes things then they could "move" you to a new block.  It would't surprise me if the people behind it all don't actually understand the size and scope of it all.  They are moving from an asset that's gaining value ($25+ per IP) to an asset worth nothing ($0+ per IP).  For ~$10k a year every customer can have basically unlimited unique non-movable IP's, they probably look at that as something horrible and not able to be justified.

[Felim_Doyle]

Some interesting viewpoints in this discussion ...

https://superuser.com/q/1479327/374461

... which includes the following links ...

https://superuser.com/q/1372769/374461
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#Addressing?wprov=sfla1

[ChrisJenkins]

The issue isn't really the dynamic nature of the address itself but rather the potential changing, more or less frequently, of the delegated prefix. For example, with my HE tunnel I get a global /64 prefix of 2001:xxxx:yyyy:aaaa so all of the IPv6 addresses used in my home network have to start with this prefix if they want to be able to access the Internet. Also, since I primarily use Ipv6 at home, all of my 'servers' (of which I have several) must be assigned static (i.e. well known) addresses within this prefix range. I also like to assign, via DHCP[6] reservations, static addresses to all of my 'client' systems (this includes phones, tablets, laptops and even some smart home devices). I also maintain my own (internal) DNS servers to provide name <-> address resolution for the 100+ devices on my home network. So all of those IPv6 addresses, including the prefix, have to be defined there too. If HE were to change the delegated IPv6 prefix to something else, say 2001:zzzz:ffff:qqqq, then I would have to (a) reconfigure all my 'servers' with the new IPv6 addresses, (b) reconfigure my DHCPv6 server with a new prefix, (c) modify every DHCPv6 reservation with the new prefix/address, (d) modify all of my DNS forward and reverse zones (around 10) accordingly. That's a good 12+ hours of work and during that period IPv6 essentially does not work for me anymore. So dynamic addresses are fine and normal/expected. Regularly changing delegated prefixes are also fine for simple setups where you are just using IPv6 to access the Internet and don't really care what the prefix/address is. If you do care then you absolutely need a fixed prefix that never changes otherwise it is unworkable. Many home setups fall into the 'don't care' category but equally many do not. I am currently on VM Business, so I really hope that if they ever do deploy IPv6 that I have the option to pay for a fixed prefix otherwise I will have to change ISP (and currently in my area there really isn't a viable alternative).

[jamesmacwhite]

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@ChrisJenkins wrote:

The issue isn't really the dynamic nature of the address itself but rather the potential changing, more or less frequently, of the delegated prefix. For example, with my HE tunnel I get a global /64 prefix of 2001:xxxx:yyyy:aaaa so all of the IPv6 addresses used in my home network have to start with this prefix if they want to be able to access the Internet. Also, since I primarily use Ipv6 at home, all of my 'servers' (of which I have several) must be assigned static (i.e. well known) addresses within this prefix range. I also like to assign, via DHCP[6] reservations, static addresses to all of my 'client' systems (this includes phones, tablets, laptops and even some smart home devices). I also maintain my own (internal) DNS servers to provide name <-> address resolution for the 100+ devices on my home network. So all of those IPv6 addresses, including the prefix, have to be defined there too. If HE were to change the delegated IPv6 prefix to something else, say 2001:zzzz:ffff:qqqq, then I would have to (a) reconfigure all my 'servers' with the new IPv6 addresses, (b) reconfigure my DHCPv6 server with a new prefix, (c) modify every DHCPv6 reservation with the new prefix/address, (d) modify all of my DNS forward and reverse zones (around 10) accordingly. That's a good 12+ hours of work and during that period IPv6 essentially does not work for me anymore. So dynamic addresses are fine and normal/expected. Regularly changing delegated prefixes are also fine for simple setups where you are just using IPv6 to access the Internet and don't really care what the prefix/address is. If you do care then you absolutely need a fixed prefix that never changes otherwise it is unworkable. Many home setups fall into the 'don't care' category but equally many do not. I am currently on VM Business, so I really hope that if they ever do deploy IPv6 that I have the option to pay for a fixed prefix otherwise I will have to change ISP (and currently in my area there really isn't a viable alternative).

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Static IPv6 prefixes seem for the most part have been adopted as a more business type offering, so it is highly likely that when the time comes (2040?) VM Business will likely do static IPv6 prefixes without any question, as it is almost expected as a requirement. VM Business does have the slightly weird scenario of offering Dynamic IPv4 on a business line but you can choose to have 1 or more static IPv4 addresses and I'd imagine static IPv6 would form part of the offer. Although many may have found the non static to be better considering the performance of the GRE tunnels was terrible at one point. I've never really been keen on VM Business, given if you have one more static IPv4, if I recall you can't do modem mode like on residential due to the GRE tunnel requirement and this wasn't really support being configured on your own router. Could be wrong though.

Most other major ISPs that are both residential and business and support IPv6 as a majority seem to be offering static IPv6 on business packages only, however some ISPs are doing static IPv6 without being under business tier by the looks of it, such as Andrews and Arnold, Zen, Aquiss and there's likely a few others. These ISPs however do tend to be more tech focussed but clearly some ISPs have chosen to go this way as a pure business decision. Perhaps catering more towards the audience that this thread is made of.

You never know, it depends on if your area is in scope for full fibre by Openreach or an alt net, my area is down as the general target by April 2024 with Openreach, for a long time their database returned "no plans in your area" then all of sudden this changed around 6 months ago and then Openreach contractors have been in the area the past few months, the CBTs have shown up on the poles and in underground chambers (which most of my area is), so now just waiting for a go live to order an ONT, this of course could be tomorrow, next week, a year etc, but depends on plans and area I guess. Keep an eye on https://one.network or https://bidb.uk/ BID is great since one.network took away public works descriptions, with that I've been able to see specific detail of Openreach and their FTTP progress, knowing there's blocked ducts on parts, when their doing dig work for laying new ducting etc. Probably a bit sad, but nice to know what's been going on!

[IllLustration]

FWIW, iOS now survives in an entirely NAT64 environment: that's the consequence of Apple controlling all submissions to their stores, and giving all Mac users the trivial means to simulate an IPv6-only NAT64 environment. The death of (or unusability of) NAT64 is greatly exaggerated. Provided are means to autodetect NAT64, so that native APIs reach IPv4 literals just OK. It's not the whole solution, but it's an important indicator, and undermines many arguments in favour of DS-lite. It's true -- even Skype now works. (If you use a Mac, Option-click the Internet Sharing row in Sharing preferences to expose NAT64 controls.)

As far as I'm concerned, transition to IPv6 is the broader goal; if DS-Lite makes it possible, I'm in favour of it, and so what if it harms peoples' expectations of IPv4 addressability and usage? Eventually, CGN will happen -- best prepare for it now. There are clear economic arguments for exploiting IPv4 addresses for "server" use cases today, and those presuppose some measure of customer demand for that particular requirement. I know it's not a popular opinion, but really, don't you think it's time to demand IPv6 by default now, while you still can? Virgin Media may be utterly incompetent, but even they have a growing customer base in need of IPv4 connectivity, and eventually that will only be met by shared IPv4 resources. You must ask for IPv6, today, right now. It does not matter what their past record is; that is the future. Customer expectations will require some guarantee of end-to-end connectivity, which will only ever be met by IPv6.