IPv6 support on Virgin media

[dgcarter]

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

[TonyJr]

My money would be on VM not using CGNAT at all when they start the rollout.

[philjohn]

Why not? VM Ireland use it in their deployment IIRC.

[griffin]

It looks like VM Ireland are already using DS-Lite  so, I would Imagine VM UK will  follow. There is an article here about LG adopting DS-Lite

What is clear is that we need IPv6 it is just a  question how and when it is implemented. I think VM think they have a big enough pool of Ipv4 addresses for future needs so are dragging their heels on implementation and not looking at the bigger picture.

Personally. I have not delved too deep into the technical side of IPv6, I am sure Horseman can give a more technical appraisal   There is some additional reading here.

[Morgaine]

@griffin writes:
> What is clear is that we need IPv6 it is just a question how and when it is implemented.

While true, the DS-Lite worries being discussed above aren't about how IPv6 is implemented, but about how IPv4 is implemented in an IPv6 world.

If the DS-Lite rumours are true, IPv6 is being implemented by VM as a native IPv6 stack, a /56 prefix being delegated to the user's CPE directly --- that's identical to how IPv6 would be implemented in a normal Dual Stack implementation.  What will be different from Dual Stack if the ISPreview news is accurate is that IPv4 will no longer be implemented as a native stack in the way it is currently.  Instead, each CPE will receive only an RFC-1918 (ie. non-public) IPv4 address, and all user IPv4 traffic will be tunneled from this over IPv6 to VM's DS-Lite AFTR gateway which will be the only device allocated with public IPv4 addresses.

This image provided by Benu Networks illustrates the resulting network topology:

Benu Networks ds-lite-diagram-1

See the parent page for more information: https://benunetworks.com/new-products/dual-stack-lite/

Although the above might be acceptable in an IPv6 world where IPv4 is just for legacy applications, moving IPv4 to DS-Lite today seems a risky proposition because of the numerous and well-known problems that it creates for IPv4.  In contrast, IPv6 will be just fine and dandy as a native stack.

Morgaine

[philjohn]

Yep - google error WS-37397-9 to see what can happen with CGNAT if a service hands out an IP ban.

[teabag]

I notice a couple have applauded BT with the IPv6 rollout, it's not without problems for many

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/02/bt-homehub-5-broadband-router-still-struggling-support...

[philjohn]

Yep, it's had issues on the equivalent of the SH2.

Works fine on the SH6 they hand out now, and will upgrade you to on request.

[Morgaine]

The small but extremely steady growth in Virgin's IPv6 counts as shown by APNIC have been very interesting to me.  As I described in message 447 of this thread, ever since the low mark at 5,682 counts on 2018_01_31, their rise has been very close to a straight line, and I think it was this steadiness that led TonyJr to attribute this pattern of increase to IPv6 infrastructure rollout.

It seemed a reasonable theory to me, because the human resources carrying out rollout work in an ISP are generally fixed, so typically only a fairly constant tally of new equipment gets installed or configured each week.  It was also a source of much optimism, given that this alleged IPv6 infrastructure rollout follows the two periods of alleged IPv6 trialing that we think we were observing through the APNIC stats.

So, against the above background, we now have new information to digest, because the recent steady rise reached a peak of 9,147 counts on 2018_03_29 and has been falling ever since:

DATE         AS      Users      IPv6-Users  %UKv6
==========   ==      ========== ==========  =====
2018_03_22:  VIRGIN  14,319,477      8,957   0.06 <-- rise started 2018_01_31
2018_03_24:  VIRGIN  14,253,241      8,999   0.06
2018_03_25:  VIRGIN  14,216,399      9,021   0.06
2018_03_26:  VIRGIN  14,191,704      9,077   0.06
2018_03_27:  VIRGIN  14,155,108      9,102   0.06
2018_03_28:  VIRGIN  14,135,325      9,114   0.06
2018_03_29:  VIRGIN  14,117,662      9,147   0.06 <-- high mark, rollout ends?
2018_03_30:  VIRGIN  14,108,716      9,122   0.06 <-- APNIC counts now falling
2018_03_31:  VIRGIN  14,110,130      9,081   0.06
2018_04_01:  VIRGIN  14,105,037      9,026   0.06
2018_04_02:  VIRGIN  14,104,633      8,960   0.06
2018_04_03:  VIRGIN  14,103,763      8,892   0.05
2018_04_04:  VIRGIN  14,093,107      8,850   0.05
2018_04_05:  VIRGIN  14,072,933      8,841   0.05
2018_04_06:  VIRGIN  14,027,866      7,911   0.05

 (Stats for the week before it started falling just shown for reference.)

I thought these falling figures might be a temporary pause initially, but after over a week of watching them drop, I suppose it's time to consider that we may have reached the end of this IPv6 infrastructure rollout, if that is indeed what it was.  If so, some IPv6 announcement from Virgin might be imminent.

PS. Note the dramatic change in the final entry, a loss of 930 IPv6 counts from 5th to 6th of April !!!  Perhaps termination of trialist's test access?

Morgaine.

[Morgaine]

If it turns out that Virgin's IPv6 service is indeed getting prep'd for launch, this could lead to BT's IPv6 APNIC counts being eclipsed overnight.  If so, a recent baseline for comparison between the UK's "Big Three" ISPs will be helpful, so here's today's comparative update from APNIC:

ISP-AS            Users         IPv6-Users   %UKv6
==========      ==========      ==========   =====
VIRGIN          14,027,866           7,911    0.05
SKY             12,725,881      11,867,313   73.12
BT              11,337,797       3,725,686   22.95

By how much Virgin Media's IPv6 counts might leap when they finally launch the service probably depends on how much old CPE equipment they still have remaining in the field, but I doubt that there is much left since we recently experienced a purge and forced upgrade to Hub 3.0.  My guess is that Virgin's stats will look much more like SKY's than like BT's, as BT has a ton of old equipment still in use by customers and only their latest HH6 is IPv6-capable --- that's the reason for the huge gulf between Users and IPv6-Users columns in BT's case.

There may be very interesting days ahead. 🙂

Morgaine.

[SlySven]

A bit of a drop around 5/6 April - perhaps they were using up some Fiscal Year based budget before the end of the Tax year?