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Morgaine

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Joined 15 years ago

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Re: IPv6 support on Virgin media
The forum popped up one of those Customer Survey boxes that we get here from time to time, and after the recent completely uninformative "response" that we received from Virgin staff, I thought to myself, "Aha, the perfect time to provide customer survey feedback about the lack of IPv6". Well, 5 attempts later, I now realize that their survey techies can't even handle plain text in an input box, so I might as well post it here as part of the community thread instead: [contains no personal info] It is 2021, almost a decade since the World IPv6 Day in 2011 and the World IPv6 Launch day in the following year, yet you still do not provide up-to-date networking, only IPv4. Alone among the three major UK ISPs, Virgin Media has completely ignored the requests of its technically knowledgeable customers for IPv6, expressed in both its community forum and in customer surveys like this one. This is a total failure by Virgin to keep up with modern IP provisioning, and post-Brexit, it is also a failure that harms our ability to compete with the EU and to be a leader in networking. In past surveys, the value I assigned for "Would you recommend Virgin Media to others?" was less than 50% owing to lack of IPv6. Well perhaps VM is lucky that their survey crashed 5 times, because this time I was intending to assign a mark of zero. I think my main feeling is one of sadness, sadness that a major UK ISP can be so out of date in networking technology, so self-centered that it rejects informed dialogue with its community, so hostile to its customers' requirements that it thinks silence is an adequate response, and so uncaring of the future of the UK in worldwide networking. As a company, Virgin Media doesn't meet even the most basic requirements of professional quality management. Fortunately we won't be stuck with Virgin's incompetence as an ISP for long. Starlink is already serving beta customers in the UK, and will offer IPv6 upon release (it's already working in beta). And other competing services are coming as well. Morgaine.
5 years ago Place QuickStart, set up and connections
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Re: IPv6 support on Virgin media
The US federal government many years ago required all subcontractors to support IPv6. It seems that now they're beginning Phase 2 of the plan: "US Government Plan to Complete IPv6 Transition" https://www.reddit.com/r/ipv6/comments/fcs0jw/us_government_plan_to_complete_ipv6_transition/ The Reddit post provides a short summary of the milestones involved in US Gov's move to IPv6-only internally. No surprise at all there, anything else would be future-blind to the point of insanity. IPv4 is like trying to fit the ocean in a thimble, and a broken thimble at that.
6 years ago Place QuickStart, set up and connections
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Re: IPv6 support on Virgin media
cje85: I replied to your message right after you linked the ThinkBroadBand thread, but on reflection perhaps it wasn't obvious that I was making a reply, my bad. I won't repeat the spiel, but in summary, (i) we can at least talk to regulators, and (ii) times they are a-changing. On 1st January 2021 we are officially in heightened competition with the countries of the EU bloc. It is a strong reason for regulators, politicians and media to examine the issue with fresh eyes.
6 years ago Place QuickStart, set up and connections
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Re: IPv6 support on Virgin media
VMCopperUser: I couldn't agree more. All of your points above are spot on. Providing a full transit service is after all intrinsically part of net neutrality, despite the topic usually being more focused on neutrality of media services. USA doesn't have our problem of a single provider in cable though, and huge american cable ISPs like Comcast have long provided IPv6. This prevents IPv6 deployment in the US from stagnating just because a single cable monopolist is dragging its feet, so today's US deployment stands at a healthy 36.7%. In contrast, IPv6 deployment in the UK began to plateau once Sky and BT completed their IPv6 rollouts, and it's been bumping around the mid-20%'s ever since. That is unavoidable when one of our "Big Three" ISPs refuses to play its part. The knock-on effect on our industry and commerce has been nothing short of appalling, and I can understand UK companies' reticence --- why should they implement IPv6 with any urgency when the millions of regular folks on Virgin Media will not be able to reach their IPv6 servers? VM is single-handedly responsible for this nationwide predicament, because residential ISPs create a dependency for all online businesses. I'm sure that the company knows this, but based on present evidence after nearly 10 years of detailed encouragement by their community, I have to conclude that they do not care that their choices prevent the nation from becoming leaders in a massively powerful enabling technology.
6 years ago Place QuickStart, set up and connections
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Re: IPv6 support on Virgin media
The regulators do at least speak to us, unlike the willfully non-communicating Virgin Media. The issue can be explored with them in far more depth, and we have additional recourse through our members of Parliament. In addition, times they are a-changing. As we have officially left the EU pending only deal-making until the end of the year, on the 1st January 2021 we are officially in heightened competition with the countries of the EU bloc. Virgin Media's never-ending deferral of IPv6 is making us uncompetitive with world progress in advanced networking, and that is going to have serious consequences for the country. It is a strong reason for regulators, politicians and media to examine the issue with fresh eyes. It should surprise nobody that we are in this situation. It is how one would expect a monopoly in cable to behave.
6 years ago Place QuickStart, set up and connections
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Re: IPv6 support on Virgin media
I think this comment by m1maj is one of the most insightful in recent times because it gets to the heart of the matter: I think we have now reached the point that the regulators should step in. I don't think a company should be allowed to advertise its service as offering the Internet if it doesn't offer IPv6 connectivity alongside IPv4. They should have to declare their service as "legacy only" or "obsolescent" or some such. The point that Virgin is not offering a full IP service is well made. But there is also another reason why regulators should step in. VirginMedia's monopoly in cable has had a clear negative impact. Unlike the UK's highly competitive markets in DSL and mobile, Virgin's monopoly in cable provides it with no competition on this medium at all, and as a result the company pays no attention to the networking needs of its users and ignores what this is doing to Britain's networking competitiveness in the wider world. This is especially true for our position versus Europe, where the leading countries are now reaching 50% IPv6 deployment. Virgin refuses to speak to us here, and going around in circles with IPv6 denialists who have no interest in educating themselves is a complete waste of time. It has become necessary to request the regulators in communications, business, and advertising accuracy to step in. Involving the media will probably help as well, in particular the business media which should be dismayed at VM's failure to capitalize on IPv6's far greater opportunities.
6 years ago Place QuickStart, set up and connections
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Re: IPv6 support on Virgin media
Here's a very good podcast on the IPv6 Buzz site, featuring Veronika McKillop from the UK IPv6 Council: "IPv6 Buzz 008: Our IPv6-Only Future" https://packetpushers.net/podcast/ipv6-buzz-008-our-ipv6-only-future/ Although her day job is on Microsoft's IPv6 team, the snippets of wisdom she conveys apply to all large organizations (certainly to ISPs), and in large degree to all companies without exception in this online age. Morgaine.
6 years ago Place QuickStart, set up and connections
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Re: IPv6 support on Virgin media
Sunday "once in a blue moon" update on IPv6 deployment in the UK by our Big Four ISPs: And here is Virgin's IPv6 usage in greater vertical resolution to distinguish it from zero: And lastly, Virgin's actual IPv6 counts from APNIC for last week. Unfortunately, nothing to be happy about: ========== ====== ========== ========== ===== ========= ====== DATE AS/ISP Users IPv6-Users %UKv6 Increment %ISPv6 ========== ====== ========== ========== ===== ========= ====== 2019_11_03: VIRGIN 11,594,748 12,580 0.06 92 0.11 2019_11_04: VIRGIN 11,598,380 12,673 0.07 93 0.11 2019_11_05: VIRGIN 11,589,341 12,668 0.07 -5 0.11 2019_11_06: VIRGIN 11,583,868 12,727 0.07 59 0.11 2019_11_07: VIRGIN 11,578,561 12,715 0.07 -12 0.11 2019_11_08: VIRGIN 11,575,091 12,704 0.07 -11 0.11 2019_11_09: VIRGIN 11,557,546 12,769 0.07 65 0.11 2019_11_10: VIRGIN 11,561,754 12,778 0.07 9 0.11 ========== ====== ========== ========== ===== ========= ====== Morgaine.
6 years ago Place QuickStart, set up and connections
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Re: IPv6 support on Virgin media
Greetings again, fellow VM sufferers. 🙂 I had a good giggle at the time over VMCopperUser's optimistic comment in message 796: Morgaine has probably retired now and moved away to a island somewhere in Asia. I know the intention was to wait it out for IPv6 deployment, but sometimes we grow old before things happen :P .... No such luck, the real explanation is less picturesque: my long-running optimistic disposition towards VirginMedia's forever-promising, never-delivering IPv6 progress finally ran out, replaced with the realization that they don't care in the slightest about customers' IPv6 networking requirements nor about the networking future of the country. They are abusing us, and they are holding back Britain's online capabilities versus the rest of the developed world. Our experience here suggests to me that this doesn't bother them at all, because otherwise this abuse wouldn't be happening. Judging by the evidence, I believe that all they care about is their own media content delivery. and it's this navel gazing that makes them see no urgency in IPv6 deployment since they don't recognize anything of value beyond provisioning their own TV and telephony. It's probably accurate to say that VirginMedia is not actually an ISP: instead it's a Media Services Provider masquerading as an ISP so that they can earn extra income from cables that would otherwise only carry their own content. A true ISP would do everything in its power to advance the networking capability of its subscribers. So, I now see them as an obstacle to IPv6 deployment in UK, and wherever possible I recommend people to use "real ISPs" that don't sacrifice progress in networking to the gods of media/TV provisioning. Good examples are AAISP, Zen Internet and even BT, plus of course Sky demonstrates very well how you can be a strong media company without holding back your customers' IPv6 capability. I notice that people have mentioned expressing their concerns to the Ombudsman or to Ofcom, and indeed such negative feedback is very important since it is clear that forum feedback is completely ignored. This leaves customers with no option as stakeholders other than to use external complaints procedures. Letters to business media and to consumer programmes on TV could be useful as well, since they are more likely to be seen by VM management than this community forum or any more technical channel. I'll still post IPv6 deployment graphs occasionally, but VM's hostility to our needs has killed my hopes. Have a great day, everyone. 🙂 Morgaine.
6 years ago Place QuickStart, set up and connections
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Re: IPv6 support on Virgin media
Sunday update --- Apparently Virgin IPv6 infrastructure rollout has been completed, but no sign of service. We're still in the same situation as a fortnight ago. After the strong almost linear growth ended on 2019-02-06, we entered a fairly stable plateau period featuring only small gains and losses. What little IPv6 growth there was reached a peak of 22,480 counts on 2019-02-26. In March, small losses have begun to dominate, perhaps a sign of early-life equipment failure, which does happen to a small percentage of new gear. Considering that we observed over 4 months of daily growth in IPv6 activity, there might well be of the order of 120 items or sets of equipment (routers, gateways, switches, PDUs, etc) deployed during the period of growth, plenty of opportunity for a few pieces to check out of life early. Burn-in of high-end or life-critical electronics is often done by diligent manufacturers to catch the most severe cases of infant mortality in equipment, but it is very expensive and commonly avoided for mass-market gear. It has been a month now since this hypothesized IPv6 equipment rollout was completed, and still not a peep from Virgin. This veil of total silence is pretty abusive to us, the customers, who are paying their wages and are the source of all their profits. Keeping your stakeholders in the loop is part of quality management, a principle which seems to elude them. Morgaine.
7 years ago Place QuickStart, set up and connections
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