IPv6 support on Virgin media

[dgcarter]

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

[Morgaine]

DS-Lite not being part of the plan isn't consistent with the information displayed in Modem Mode on Hub 3.0 under the Admin->Info menu, as follows:

IPv6 DS-Lite status : Disable
DS-Lite-FQDN :
DS-Lite-address : ::

If it's true that DS-Lite isn't part of Virgin's IPv6 plan at the present time, then it looks like they've changed their plan from what it was before, and Hub 3.0 firmware hasn't caught up with the current plan yet.

[Sephiroth]

That was what I was told. No DS-Lite - at least not enforced DS-Lite. DS-Lite is used in Ireland on the Compal version of the device.

[Morgaine]

Maybe VM techies couldn't figure out a way to make DS-Lite stateful and behave like their native IPv4 does currently, ie. keeping the same IPv4 address as long as the CPE's MAC address remains the same.  That would have made DS-Lite palatable, but if they failed to design that then indeed stateless DS-Lite would be an utter disaster for users and would have become a support nightmare for VM.  Under those circumstances it wouldn't surprise me if they abandoned DS-Lite plans and switched their IPv6 target to dual stack.

Unfortunately dual stack is just a short-term transition mechanism and has no future beyond local IPv4 exhaustion at all, whereas DS-Lite transforms easily into "IPv4 as an extra-cost service" which makes the long tail of legacy IPv4 users bring in some nice extra cash --- not surprisingly, most ISPs tend to like that idea.

Perhaps Virgin just deferred it:  dual stack while they still have IPv4 addresses to assign statefully, and then the horrible stateless DS-Lite for new customers once VM runs out of IPv4 blocks in a few years' time.

[SlySven]

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Morgaine wrote: ... Perhaps Virgin just deferred it:  dual stack while they still have IPv4 addresses to assign statefully, and then the horrible stateless DS-Lite for new customers once VM runs out of IPv4 blocks in a few years' time.

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Well VM keep saying that they are not going to run out of IPv4 addresses for the foreseeable future and words to the effect of "Don't panic, this isn't a problem for us" what with customers moving to other High-speed ISPs maybe VM customer-base will become, what is a polite term, ah, how about "consolidated" in the next few years!

[Anonymous]

What about the possibility that VM firmware for SuperHub 3 is common across multiple regions? Getting OEM firmware developed for a device is expensive. The DS-Lite functionality could be in there for deployment in VM Ireland where such things are required but not turned on for VM UK where they aren't.

[Morgaine]

That's an interesting suggestion @davefiddes.  It's certainly possible that the DS-Lite options in Hub 3.0 are generic to the device, and not related to any Virgin Media plans for the UK.

Perhaps one of the early adopters of Hub 3.0 might remember whether the DS-Lite information fields that I pasted earlier were there from the day of Hub 3.0 release, and not a recent addition reflecting the "by the middle of 2017" plans of half a year ago.

[Sephiroth]

I will take a look at my early screen shots.

[Sephiroth]

v8.1.88J5 WAN IP shows IPv4 only
v8.1.88T WAN IP shows IPv4 & IPv6; DS-Lite is shown as Disabled.
v9.1.116V Ditto.

[Morgaine]

Interesting information, thanks @Sephiroth.

So, the history of Hub 3.0 firmware upgrades does strongly suggest that DS-Lite was part of a recent IPv6 deployment plan for the UK, probably the plan that was intended to come to fruition "by the middle of 2017".

As I speculated before, if it's true that DS-Lite isn't part of Virgin's current IPv6 plan for "later this year", then it looks like they've changed their plan from what it was before, and Hub 3.0 firmware hasn't caught up with the current plan yet.  If so then we can expect new firmware to roll out in advance of IPv6 deployment, and for the current DS-Lite fields to vanish.

[couling]

Silly question. Why would we need DS-Lite?  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_transition_mechanism#Dual-Stack_Lite_.28DS-Lite.29

From what I read DS-Lite isn't end to end dual stack; it's Carrier-Grade-NAT (CGN) masquerading as dual stack.

I thought CGN was generally considered an abomination and something to be avoided at all costs?

If VM have enough v4 IPs (as they've always claimed) then the best thing for their customers is NOT to use DS-Lite.  The best thing for us is actual bonafide Dual Stack with two public IPs (a v4 address and a /64 v6 block).