BT to Deploy IPv6 across entire network by December 2016

BT�s Consumer division has just confirmed that they intend to deploy the Internet Protocol v6 (IPv6) Internet addressing standard across their entire network by December 2016.

The operator informed the 2nd UK IPv6 Council Meeting in London today of their plans, which will see the �new� Internet addressing standard deployed to 50% of their national network in the United Kingdom by April 2016 and then 100% by December 2016. The deployment will officially get underway this year with a very �gentle start�.

Customers with one of BT�s latest HomeHub 5 broadband routers will be the first to get the service and the ISP is also looking at an upgrade for their existing HomeHub 4..

More at http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2015/09/uk-isp-...

they said they would do it in 2014 and it never happened.

Dec 2016 is almost 18 months away, why do they need so long when they been testing it since 2 years ago,.

Surely it's the sensible way to update their system when it has millions of customers on it? Any test has been only with a limited number of users. There's no need to hurry really when they have enough IPv4 addresses so 15 months seems a reasonable timeframe.

In reply to a post by Kr1s69:

There's no need to hurry really when they have enough IPv4 addresses so 15 months seems a reasonable timeframe.

That would seem to imply when IPv6 is enabled on a connection, the IPv4 address on dual-stack will be a shared one via CGN. Otherwise, introducing IPv6 does not reduce IPv4 usage at all.

In other news, AAISP has been offering IPv6 since 2002.

Many ISPs out there are wayyyyy behind!

I misread, seems they starting way before then and expect 50% done halfway through 2016.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

they said they would do it in 2014 and it never happened.

Dec 2016 is almost 18 months away, why do they need so long when they been testing it since 2 years ago,.

Indeed. Zen are about complete with their trial I think. or will be soon.

My next door neighbour was sent a HH5 when they upgraded from infinity limited to infinity 1 unlimited. I set it up for them, but to be honest it was worse than their home hub 3, Phones and tablets not connecting to the Wi-fi, Wi-fi signal being lower than the HH3. So I set up the old HH3 and BTOR modem again.

So is the modem IPV6 compatible and if so can they just not carry on with that they have got or will they have to use that awful HH5? My self I would prefer it if they went for another provider.

My findings have been that the modem HG612 is not IPv6 compatible BUT as the modem is only bridging the VDSL connection to the WAN of a router it is only the router (the equipment logging in PPP session) that needs to be capable.

I would assume BT would be doing some work to make HH3's capable as I'm pretty sure there is a lot of them still in use though the number of those on Fibre is small so might see issues there.

It might be that HH3 will get an update that will allow the DSL modem to get IPv6 but they might not support IPv6 over the WAN input on HH3 and might reserve that for HH5 only (for FTTP)

I have only been using a HH5 for about 6 weeks and it seems fine to me - its my first HH - so you may want to plug your neighbours back in (even behind the OR modem) and let it update its firmware to see if that resolves the problems.

No idea if a HH3 (which I never used) will be IP6 compatible but BT will have to have some sort of migration plan for it and the OR modem given the number out there..

The HH5 firmware already includes references to IPv6 even if its not active yet

Rolling out IPv6 doesn't mean that IPv4 will be dropped, so existing users and their kit should not be affected. It just means that new customers may be forced to use IPv6 once BT Consumer run out of IPv4 addresses.

In time of course there will be some IPv6-only web servers. That's the users' problem on old kit, not the ISPs. If a customer wants IPv6 capability they will have to buy it. How BT Consumer will handle that is another question, given the ways IPv4 and IPv6 can be set up on user equipment.

Any ISP deploying IPv6 as the only IP connectivity is going to find lots of complaints about websites not working.

IPv4 is going to be around for a long time, until such time as 99.9999% of websites and services actually work on IPv6 natively.

IPv6 with a CGNAT IPv4 address will be the way it goes if they do actually run out of IPv4 allocation

knowing BT they will go with IPv6 with a CGNAT IPv4.

how Comcast in US do it ? do they run full IPV6 only network and tunnel ipv4 traffic ?

Zyborg47,

Not very impressed with BT customer service but have to say my HH5 (b) works well.

WiFi is as good as anything I have used before. Multiple users at times with no speed or drops.
Perhaps your neighbour has a faulty one.

Or NAT64:

http://aa.net.uk/kb-broadband-ipv6-nat64.html

NAT64 looks promising I might try it tonight on AA network

I have to agree, the HH3 had much better wifi than the HH5 does, don't know why as the signal strength (as measured on a Macbook Wireless disgnostics) seems OK yet upstairs it always tried to connect to BT FON rather than the default 2.4 GHz signal. And no 5GHz outside the room that the HH5 is in.

TBB speed tests shows that the upstairs PC gets about 5 down, 3 up comparared to the direct Lan connection to the hub which is 50 down / 8 up. This is on an identical Macbook...

I wish they would do the simple things first...........like fix their bleeding email service!

Progress though..

It was on for 2 days before we gave up on it, so I presume it should have updated in those couple of days, I also do nto think that is the problem anyway.
I have looked around the net and a few people have the same problems with it. I even separated the frequencies using two different SSID and that did not work either, the Windows phone would not connect, a Android phone still would not connect and the signal was low to the tablet they use.


I suppose we will have to wait and see what happens i suppose

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Any ISP deploying IPv6 as the only IP connectivity is going to find lots of complaints about websites not working.

IPv4 is going to be around for a long time, until such time as 99.9999% of websites and services actually work on IPv6 natively.

IPv6 with a CGNAT IPv4 address will be the way it goes if they do actually run out of IPv4 allocation

so the old HH3 should be ok then?

In reply to a post by ZenUserJP:

Indeed. Zen are about complete with their trial I think. or will be soon.

And both IDNet and AAISP have been running dual-stack for several years now

It took over three weeks before BT got around to updating my firmware to the latest version after I started using the HH5... - and that was with it continuously connected..

Edited by gt94sss2 (Thu 01-Oct-15 12:30:41)

No idea, but if BT unilaterally changes it network and old hardware does not work, free new hardware should be provided

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

No idea, but if BT unilaterally changes it network and old hardware does not work, free new hardware should be provided

I can't see that happening, I'm sure at worst BT customers with legacy routers will be left with a (CGN'd) IPv4 and no IPv6.

And would make for an interesting day in court whether that was a material change to an ongoing service for those in a contract. I would say it was, as while cgnat is fine for the vast majority of activities it may prove problematic for some services and lead to confusion when some new bit of software does not work.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

And would make for an interesting day in court whether that was a material change to an ongoing service for those in a contract. I would say it was, as while cgnat is fine for the vast majority of activities it may prove problematic for some services and lead to confusion when some new bit of software does not work.

BT could offer a facility for people to opt-out of CGN as they did do in the past. The vast majority will not opt-out so no problem with running out of addresses.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

And would make for an interesting day in court whether that was a material change to an ongoing service for those in a contract. I would say it was, as while cgnat is fine for the vast majority of activities it may prove problematic for some services and lead to confusion when some new bit of software does not work.

BT could offer a facility for people to opt-out of CGN as they did do in the past. The vast majority will not opt-out so no problem with running out of addresses.

We had to opt out a little while back due to some features we needed to use failed to work and we did some searching and was sharing of IPs that was at fault, and just asked BT to take us off of it and all worked fine since.

Still waiting for BT to switch us to IPv6 due to all our network is IPv6 ready along with our remote servers.

Paul

Ah yeah, the opt-out page is still here: https://www.bt.com/appsconsumeraccount/ipSharing.do

I don't know how active BT are these days with provisioning customers on CGN, I haven't heard much about it recently.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Ah yeah, the opt-out page is still here: https://www.bt.com/appsconsumeraccount/ipSharing.do

I don't know how active BT are these days with provisioning customers on CGN, I haven't heard much about it recently.

Yeah that seems about right, I ended up doing over the phone and got that and BTFON disabled, we get very low ADSLx as it is so we didn't want to share what we did get LOL.

Paul

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

No idea, but if BT unilaterally changes it network and old hardware does not work, free new hardware should be provided

The problem is the new hardware BT sent them is IPv6 compatible being the newer HH5, but it is this newer hub that is not working as it should.

In reply to a post by gt94sss2:

It took over three weeks before BT got around to updating my firmware to the latest version after I started using the HH5... - and that was with it continuously connected..

They are not going to wait for three weeks for it be updated, what is the point in having it if they have to wait three weeks for it to work?

TBH, it should work out of the box, if I can't get it working, then how on earth would other people manage? Maybe if BT concentrated on on things that was important instead of the stupid smart setup, which is not that smart, then trhings may work better.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

TBH, it should work out of the box, if I can't get it working, then how on earth would other people manage? Maybe if BT concentrated on on things that was important instead of the stupid smart setup, which is not that smart, then trhings may work better.

Well our HH4 (Type A) has supported IPv6 since we have had it, not sure how well it would work, due to not been given IPv6 yet so its all disabled shown below:

IPv6 Status

IPv6 Hub Status:         Disabled 
IPv6 Network Status:     Disabled

IPv6 will be disabled on your BT Home Hub and BT Broadband Network until supported by future services

So I guess its just a waiting game before I would know how well it runs.

Paul

Yeah I took that message in the Home Hub 4 to mean that the firmware had IPv6 support but it was currently disabled on the network and the Hub.

However in this article BT state the Home Hub 4 is not IPv6 compatible at all: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34346803

Edited by Oliver341 (Fri 02-Oct-15 17:31:12)

Well they said HH4 not HH4 (Type A) , not too sure if they are the same, but either way I have a Fritz!Box 3390 that I could use if our HH4 (Type A) has issues with IPv6.

I would be using it now for our ADSL2+ but due to having issues on our line, and have to be using a BT HH to do some of their tests.

Else I would bin our BT HH.

Paul