IPv6 support on Virgin media

[dgcarter]

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

[adhawkins]

When I start the download from that site, initially I get bit rates around the 300 MBits/sec, but after 10-20 seconds the bit rate drops down to more like 20 MBits/sec.

Something odd going on I think!

Andy

[ksim]

traceroute to the non HE tunnel endpoint:

traceroute -w 1 -n 193.0.203.203
traceroute to 193.0.203.203 (193.0.203.203), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.1.2  0.542 ms  0.216 ms  0.167 ms
 2  * * *
 3  62.255.32.121  12.589 ms  12.346 ms  12.570 ms
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  * * *
 7  62.254.42.174  15.356 ms  18.937 ms  15.976 ms
 8  87.245.245.22  16.061 ms  24.876 ms  16.087 ms
 9  87.245.232.129  68.062 ms  60.948 ms  59.707 ms
10  87.245.228.34  75.156 ms  77.041 ms  70.071 ms
11  * * *
12  193.0.203.203  77.932 ms  67.093 ms  72.875 ms

[WiteWulf]

Quick test using dslreports, forced IPv6, topped out at 19mb/s. I get 220mb/s on IPv4 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

My "normal" use case is scp'ing files from my server at work (server on GigE, site on 40Gb/s), they always get rate limited to 20mb/s over IPv6, but my PS4 downloading updates will saturate the 220mb/s connection.

[Anonymous]

WiteWulf what are you using for a router/tunnel end-point?

To follow up on ksim's traceroute, here is mine:

traceroute -w 1 216.66.80.26
traceroute to 216.66.80.26 (216.66.80.26), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 10.234.180.1 (10.234.180.1) 7.979 ms 12.081 ms 7.519 ms
2 sgyl-core-2b-xe-212-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.254.76.13) 8.312 ms 23.719 ms 18.670 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 86.85-254-62.static.virginmediabusiness.co.uk (62.254.85.86) 19.328 ms 19.982 ms 19.618 ms
6 * * *
7 de-fra04d-rc1-ae56-0.aorta.net (84.116.132.5) 30.518 ms 31.857 ms 31.300 ms
8 fr-par02b-rd1-ae102-0.aorta.net (84.116.130.102) 54.447 ms 37.311 ms 32.136 ms
9 10ge10-2.core1.fra1.he.net (216.66.87.125) 29.774 ms 31.110 ms 31.014 ms
10 100ge6-1.core1.lon2.he.net (184.105.80.37) 31.498 ms 31.262 ms 31.550 ms
11 tserv1.lon1.he.net (216.66.80.26) 30.793 ms 33.581 ms 30.425 ms

The route looks interesting. Seems that my traffic goes off to Germany and back through France to the HE tunnel end-point. Funky!

Comparing with ksim's trace it looks like the route through the HE network is the same but the exit through the VM network is quite different (as expected). Perhaps this is an issue with ex-NTL regions?

The traffic is certainly going an odd way. Last time I looked at this it was going through LINX as you'd expect. When I noticed traffic going via Europe previously (many years ago) it was at the time VM's LINX interconnects were all very badly congested and IPv6 was actually faster than IPv4 by a substantial margin!

[ksim]

> 86.85-254-62.static.virginmediabusiness.co.uk (62.254.85.86)

interesting that your route is going through VM business, do you have Business broadband or residential?

[cje85]

A lot of VM residential connections are routed through that VM Business server, I'm on residential but see it frequently in traceroutes.

[adhawkins]

This is my traceroute if it helps:

traceroute to 216.66.88.98 (216.66.88.98), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  * * *
 2  brhm-core-2b-xe-814-0.network.virginmedia.net (81.108.33.29)  30.891 ms  31.090 ms  31.257 ms
 3  * * *
 4  * * *
 5  m686-mp2.cvx1-b.lis.dial.ntli.net (62.254.42.174)  51.286 ms  51.364 ms  50.926 ms
 6  * * *
 7  de-fra04d-rc1-ae56-0.aorta.net (84.116.132.5)  48.551 ms  57.731 ms  57.635 ms
 8  fr-par02b-rd1-ae102-0.aorta.net (84.116.130.102)  57.101 ms  41.280 ms  41.863 ms
 9  10ge10-2.core1.fra1.he.net (216.66.87.125)  40.933 ms  41.211 ms  49.007 ms
10  100ge6-1.core1.lon2.he.net (184.105.80.37)  44.792 ms  44.015 ms  44.248 ms
11  tserv1.lon2.he.net (216.66.88.98)  50.183 ms  47.960 ms  48.047 ms

I'm still seeing the odd behaviour when doing a speedtest at http://test.telenor.net/. The first one I do seems to run at full speed, but subsequent ones seem to be limited around 20 MBits/sec...

Andy

[ksim]

Maybe this is the key difference if you luckily routed through VM Bisness you have no caps using protocol 41.

[Anonymous]

That seems a sound theory. As it'll be costing transit bandwidth regardless it's not surprising that traffic is shaped.

[ksim]

"VM tech advanced level 100500 support" is saying they are not shaping anything, and they even do not know what 6in4 or protocol 41, and because they do not know and are not trained then they can't shape it 😄