EE (basically BT) broadband IPv6

I know BT / EE (new) offer IPv6

I've seen conflicting reports about whether this is a /56 or a /64 - the latter being problematic for prefix delegation. My conclusion so far is that users of the provided hub only get to see a /64, but in fact the network does offer a /56 which works fine with other routers like opnsense.

Can anyone confirm?

Secondly, I presume this prefix is dynamically allocated not static? (on consumer plans)

Secondly, I presume this prefix is dynamically allocated not static?

Why do you follow your statement with a question mark?
If you have a question that you expect others to take the time to answer, at least have the common courtesy to phrase your post appropriately.

For your third post in 4 years that comes across as rather aggressive and rude. It seems a perfectly good question to me.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-gra...

Edited by TinyMongomery (Sat 10-Aug-24 19:51:31)

OpenWRT is reporting /56 on my EE connection.

Showing as /64 on my Draytek router

In reply to a post by Speckled500:

Secondly, I presume this prefix is dynamically allocated not static?

Why do you follow your statement with a question mark?

probably because its a different thing.

thanks for confirming - that's really helpful

Interesting - is that just the address for the WAN interface on the router? That's often a /64 .. it's the allocated *prefix* that needs to be broader. I think it's that way from what I've seen in the other posts.

My Smart Hub also gives a /64 IPv6 global unicast prefix / length. The help says

The pool of addresses available for all the devices you connect to your BT Smart Hub.

The prefix will be the start of each address and the length tells you how many addresses are available.

No, it does show /64 on both

Edited by Colinh58 (Mon 12-Aug-24 18:45:25)

Ah, well thanks for sharing. Different to others. Wonder if it's router config. Hard to say.

Always the challenge with large ISPs is finding official technical answers!

My router log shows that BT issued a /56, and the router uses the first /64 to assign addresses to local systems. The status page shows the /64 assigned to the LAN interface, so I suspect most simple ISP supplied routers only show that part of the allocation.

As an aside, my router allows me to delegate the remaining blocks to downstream routers: building a publicly routable network of LANs if I wished. Definitely a lot more powerful than the single dynamic IPv4 or even a small block of IPv4 addresses.

And no more NAT 😁

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

My Smart Hub also gives a /64 IPv6 global unicast prefix / length. The help says

The pool of addresses available for all the devices you connect to your BT Smart Hub.

The prefix will be the start of each address and the length tells you how many addresses are available.

Unless the last sentence is referring to a limit of 64 devices on the hub, in fact whether or not it is intended to, that "help" is a load of baloney.

Edited by pluralist (Tue 13-Aug-24 22:48:18)

It's highly unlikely that the prefix would be dynamic.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

For your third post in 4 years that comes across as rather aggressive and rude. It seems a perfectly good question to me.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-gra...

In a restricted access forum almost a year ago you wrote:

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Try to be understanding.

The need to constantly correct the grammar and spelling of others is a psychological disorder. We need to support sufferers of this ailment and try to boost their low self esteem. We have a few on this forum, so try to make them feel better about themselves.

It must be horrible to go through life feeling like that.

Aren't you being just as "aggressive and rude" yourself there? You could have made your grammar point, with which I agree, without the first sentence of your reply to speckled500.

You are no more a moderator here than you are in the forum where you posted that. The last sentence in the quote should haunt you.

IPv6 terminology will confuse most consumers. The important message is that they will never run out of local IPv6 addresses no matter how many local systems they have.

/64 refers to the number of bits available for client addresses: 64 bits allows around 18 quintillion unique addresses! Probably enough in a single /64 to assign a unique address to every grain of sand on earth.

A /56 prefix delegation provides 8 bits for local prefixes: that’s 256 local subnets, each with 18 quintillion client addresses.

I know. Why do you think I said the "help" in inverted commas there and here was baloney?

Edit: Similarly about the /64 prefix not being dynamic.

Edited by pluralist (Wed 14-Aug-24 08:44:10)

It would be great if you could try to keep your personal vendettas out of the information forums. It's not helpful to allow arguments from The Park to spill over here.

Thank you for your cooperation in advance.

Post deleted by pluralist

I expect every other poster here agrees with my opinion that you could have made your point about the grammar, (note that I agreed with that), without your unnecessary rudeness and aggression to the poster. Now repeated against me.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

It's highly unlikely that the prefix would be dynamic.

It's not that unlikely, on Sky the IPv6 prefix is dynamic. I think this is how it should be, having a random address from 18 quintillion addresses doesn't prevent third-party tracking when the first four blocks on the address remain the same every time.

(Side note: I'm aware there are other means of tracking, but the IP address is the only one outside the customer's control, unless a VPN is employed).

Ah, interesting.

I was extrapolating from my time on AAISP, where the customer had a /128 router WAN address, ending in the hex values of their static IPv4 address. Then a different /48 from the one starting that /128, with a single /64 activated/routed at the AAISP end. We could add /56s and /64s from our control panel.

Each connected device was given a fixed for the session and a varying temporary IPv6 address at the time of it connecting to the router, with the temporary one being the one publicly visible. As in detected by tbb BQM if you tried to set one up. You have to manually alter the BQM setting to the router address, which of course applies to IPv6 connections in general.

That temporary address changed automatically whilst connected. Quite how that was engineered is above my pay grade, though clearly the connection to the router was maintained by the fixed one. Seeing as in coming traffic is going initially to the AAISP /32, (in the following link: "At this point we will be routing any IPv6 blocks to your /128 WAN address. Usually a line will have at least one /64 block route"), that shouldn't be too difficult. I expect just route it out to the permanent one.

I left at the end of 2018. Things have changed slightly since then.

I think, though I stand to be corrected, that largely solves the tracking problem because the "tracker" would need considerable sophistication and processing power to make any sense of things. Bearing in mind that the "fancy" way AAISP are doing it is aimed mainly at businesses, many of which will have multiple levels of subnets within their /48.

Answer: AI .

In reply to a post by pluralist:

I think, though I stand to be corrected, that largely solves the tracking problem because the "tracker" would need considerable sophistication and processing power to make any sense of things.

To be honest, I didn't fully follow all that! Sky (and probably BT and others) delegate a dynamic /56 prefix to the router, of which a /64 is then globally routed.

Since the /64 is a de facto standard, an individual user can be easily tracked by the xx bit of:

xx:xx:xx:xx:yy:yy:yy:yy

So I find the temporary addressing feature of IPv6 curious, it really seems of little value.

I've always stood by the value of dynamic IP addresses when it comes to consumer connections, usually at the expense of a fair bit of disagreement, especially when it comes to IPv6.

Maybe some people even remember in the early days of PIPEX when they switched their IP addresses to very sticky/static, and they offered an opt-out to return to dynamic. Yes, I opted-out!

I've been on BT for about 18 months now and was disappointed to find IPv6 was dynamic. I've turned it off.

Basically the xx:xx:xx:xx they see when you next go to them is different. Not just the yy:yy:yy:yy.

They would need to be storing further information about your device, which they can see but may also be different especially on a business subnet.

Even here, long retired, every day I have four, sometimes five, different devices using my router, plus the TV. Both my phones are dual-network as well.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

Basically the xx:xx:xx:xx they see when you next go to them is different. Not just the yy:yy:yy:yy.

Ah, sounds good to me. It's a divisive topic, I know there are people who value static, and those who value dynamic.