IPv6

Interesting to see some new movement on IPv6 adoption, with Vodafone starting to roll out and Plusnet starting a new trial.

The largest cloud service provider AWS started charging for IPv4 addresses this month, the three largest now do so. IPv6 addresses are of course free. Companies will undoubtedly be trimming back their IPv4 portfolio in a big way and their people need to be able to connect.

It wouldn't be viable for me to join an IPv4-only ISP anymore.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

It wouldn't be viable for me to join an IPv4-only ISP anymore.

To be honest, I'm really not sure that this applies to 99% of people.. Remaining 1% will be those who do it on principle and those who actually use v6 to develop something.

Not saying it's wrong to in principle require it, just that it's not the case for most people.

Edited by seb (Fri 16-Feb-24 13:07:55)

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

It wouldn't be viable for me to join an IPv4-only ISP anymore.

Many large corporates and Govt depts are not IPv6 enabled yet, and a significant provider or high speed broadband to the UK is not yet IPv6 enabled, but can give you a gigabit service. Maybe moving from AWS is a better option perhaps? or they've just run out?? The smaller providers (e.g. OVH) can undercut the big hyperscalers depending on your workload.

Edited by jchamier (Fri 16-Feb-24 13:40:49)

Can you help me understand the OP means?

I thought Sky use IPV6 for the WAN part of their routers, they use DHCPv6-PD to authenticate or am I wildly not understanding this post?

Most routers support IPV6 these days dont they so whats the issue with AWS using IPV6?

Im asking for my own education, I am interested.

Surely if you have an IPV4 external IP and wider subnet this does not prevent you from connecting to an internet host at an IPV6 address?

Edited by naylor2006 (Fri 16-Feb-24 15:05:45)

Many company and some ISP networks are not configured for IPv6. So, on some ISPs you cannot use IPv6.

For most people this makes no difference but there are a small (but likely growing) number of new Internet sites or services that only support IPv6. If the thing you want to get at is only IPv6 then you will not be able to get to it if your network connection doesn't support it.

Due to the shortage of addresses on IPv4 some new services will go only IPv6 or have additional costs in buying IPv4 public addresses.

ahh thanks Ian I get it now, I was aware that IPV4 was running out but didnt realise it would be a hard cut like that.

Makes me more curious about Sky now, when I was looking at Sky FTTP and using my own router I was looking into how to get it to work and that DHCPv6-PD was a requirement but an IPV4 address sits behind this on the router. I also read that your router needs DHCPv4 Option 61 in some other cases for Sky.

I didnt go with Sky in the end so am simply using PPPOE with BT but the whole sky thing did get me curious that if they were indeed using IPV6 and what the wider consequences of that were.

I’m with Virgin Media, this means I cannot connect to a website that is only available on IPv6, such as Loops of Zen. This is the only site I can think of that is only available on IPv6.
https://www.revk.uk/2011/02/loops-of-zen.html

This is nothing to do with my router (I use an Asus) which is quite capable of v6, but because my provider doesn’t support.

I could switch to a VDSL/FTTC based ISP such as A&A but then I would get only 30 Mbps download, and 4 Mbps upload, and I prefer the higher speeds (250down, 25 up) I have via cable.

Edited by jchamier (Fri 16-Feb-24 17:42:35)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Maybe moving from AWS is a better option perhaps?

Moving cloud providers is a huge task for large organisations, so in the vast majority of cases they will just swallow the new IPv4 charges. But the bean counters will not be happy.

Going forward I believe they will cut back on their IPv4 usage and increasingly require their people to connect via IPv6. I don't think the announcements from Vodafone and Plusnet are coincidental; sure they will have been playing around with IPv6 before but AWS and the like are hitting organisations in the pocket for IPv4 usage and this will have some knock-on effect.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

This is the only site I can think of that is only available on IPv6.
https://www.revk.uk/2011/02/loops-of-zen.html

I have a server for personal usage on Azure, for instance, that is IPv6 only. Admittedly the IPv4 charge would only be about 7p per day, but I'm happier not to be paying it.

Just a tiny example, but estimates show the new IPv4 charges will gain AWS over $2bn per year (which will be offset against the considerable expense of IPv4 acquisition).

Many AWS using clients of mine have no public v4. They link VPCs to internal on premise networks using the AWS offerings.

Minimising v4 usage with clever networking may be worthwhile for public services.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

It wouldn't be viable for me to join an IPv4-only ISP anymore.

It wouldn't be viable or you just choose not to?

IPV6 plays a small factor in my choice of provider, but I can't think of anything I can do now that I couldn't do with an IPV4 only provider.

I think you would get more issues with IPV6 only or even IPV6 with CGNAT than you would with an IPV4 only connection.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

I have a server for personal usage on Azure, for instance, that is IPv6 only. Admittedly the IPv4 charge would only be about 7p per day, but I'm happier not to be paying it.

If you're not using any of the other services, just using a VM on Azure (EC2 on AWS) then you can get this for MUCH cheaper from OVH, and their VPSes are all dual v4 and v6 and you don't pay for IP addresses.
https://www.ovhcloud.com/en-gb/vps/

In some IT industry opinions the "cloud bubble" is starting to burst, due to the ever increasing usage costs. Ultimate flexibility is great, but it is not cheap. The (now) legacy providers that can do services for monthly fixed rate often works out cheaper --- depending on workload!

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

I think you would get more issues with IPV6 only or even IPV6 with CGNAT than you would with an IPV4 only connection.

The alt-net FTTP in my road is v6 with CGNATv4 - and there are a lot of these newer networks. I'm more worried about an ISP offering CGNATv4 and no v6 at all... that's crazy.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

It wouldn't be viable or you just choose not to?

It's not viable for me to connect to an IPv6 only server without IPv6.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

I think you would get more issues with IPV6 only or even IPV6 with CGNAT than you would with an IPV4 only connection.

Obviously I have IPv4 as well as IPv6, even though many internet services are IPv6-enabled. IPV6 with CGNAT is pointless, CGNAT is designed to preserve IPv4 addresses.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

If you're not using any of the other services, just using a VM on Azure (EC2 on AWS) then you can get this for MUCH cheaper from OVH, and their VPSes are all dual v4 and v6 and you don't pay for IP addresses.

Yeah, decent prices, but I don't find AWS extortionate. Around £7 a month for a 1core 1GB VM. IPv4 is surplus to my requirements so I don't mind not having it included.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

The (now) legacy providers that can do services for monthly fixed rate often works out cheaper --- depending on workload!

Fair point. Corps have spent huge amounts of time integrating their systems with a myriad of different services within each cloud provider, which feels essentially like self lock-in due to the complexity of reorganising it all during a migration.

In reply to a post by naylor2006:

Surely if you have an IPV4 external IP and wider subnet this does not prevent you from connecting to an internet host at an IPV6 address?

Yes it does.

* If you have only an IPv4 address, you cannot connect to IPv6 destinations.
* If you have only an IPv6 address, you cannot connect to IPv4 destinations.
* This is why you need dual stack (both IPv4+IPv6)

However in practice all content on the Internet is reachable on IPv4, and will be for the foreseeable future, and yet most isn't available on IPv6. This means that an IPv4-only connection lets you reach everything, whilst an IPv6-only connection is not very useful.

If you have IPv6 only it is possible to reach IPv4 via a NAT64 gateway - but the NAT64 still needs its own IPv4 address on the outside.

I guess I meant more from an operational point of view rather than network fundamentals.

ISP’s and providers in general are going to need to offer some kind of hybrid setup utilising a gateway to facilitate the eventual move to ipv6.

As a ‘normal’ internet user (who with respect to myself is no expert on networking) it would be a strange Internet where suddenly there are two WANs isolated from each other, if hosts are choosing not to pay to have an IPV4 address along with the free IPV6.

In reply to a post by naylor2006:

ISP’s and providers in general are going to need to offer some kind of hybrid setup utilising a gateway to facilitate the eventual move to ipv6.

If that was going to happen it would be a thing by now. There is no point in spending resources on implementing IPv4 to IPv6 gateways when implementing native dual-stack is the obvious solution.

The cost to businesses of maintaining all those legacy IPv4 addresses will be passed on to us, the consumer, and we will happily pay it of course.

In reply to a post by naylor2006:

As a ‘normal’ internet user (who with respect to myself is no expert on networking) it would be a strange Internet where suddenly there are two WANs isolated from each other, if hosts are choosing not to pay to have an IPV4 address along with the free IPV6.

Two WANs is effectively what you do get with dual stack. The protocols are ships that pass in the night.

However, "hosts are choosing not to pay to have an IPV4 address along with the free IPV6" is never going to happen (where "never" means "not in the next 20 years", which is forever in Internet terms)

Content is about money, and money is about selling things, whether that be products or advert impressions. If you cut off a proportion of your customer base or your advert eyeballs, you cut off a proportion of your money. It simply won't happen.

More importantly, there is no shortage of IPv4 addresses at the content provider side. They have been sharing IPv4 addresses for years.

Sure: if you run an AWS virtual machine you now have to pay (a tiny amount) extra for an IPv4 address. But it's nothing compared to what companies pay for a recognizable domain name, or even for the VM hosting itself.

In any case, most websites these days run behind a CDN like Cloudflare or Cloudfront or Akamai, and just share their IP addresses.

That is: you could run your VM in Amazon on an IPv6-only address, and stick a CDN in front of it, and then your content is visible to both IPv4 and IPv6 users. Job done.

The reason for running dual-stack at the consumer side (i.e. home ISPs) is partly to be "ready" for some unspecified date in the future when IPv4 might be turned off. It also avoids the overhead of NAT (which is small for consumer users), and enables some applications like gaming and server hosting which work better when not behind NAT.

But if you don't do any of these things, you won't notice any difference.

In reply to a post by naylor2006:

As a ‘normal’ internet user (who with respect to myself is no expert on networking) it would be a strange Internet where suddenly there are two WANs isolated from each other, if hosts are choosing not to pay to have an IPV4 address along with the free IPV6.

The owner of the AWS account that doesn't pay for v4 is the one whom will lose out. Nobody else.

And EE mobile (different to fixed line) is trying to run a v6 only network, with translation to v4 at the gateway, it has its own issues. This from 8 years ago....
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/11/ee-mak...

In reply to a post by jchamier:

The owner of the AWS account that doesn't pay for v4 is the one whom will lose out. Nobody else.

We all lose out as the increasing expense of servicing Ipv4 will be passed to consumers. A "tiny amount" for one Ipv4 address, but over $2bn across AWS users alone.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

[IPv6] ... enables some applications like gaming and server hosting which work better when not behind NAT.

But if you don't do any of these things, you won't notice any difference.

Not sure that's quite right.. I'm stuck with an IPv4-only altnet behind CGNAT, and I can't run things like TBB BQM. I could get a static v4 address for a few extra quid a month, but I don't need it for much else, and TBB support IPv6. I've tried to negotiate a dynamic v4 address and use DDNS, but my ISP won't do it.

Incidentally, I noticed recently that DNS AAAA requests for bbc.co.uk are now returning an address, rather than NODATA. A sign of things to come, maybe?

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

We all lose out as the increasing expense of servicing Ipv4 will be passed to consumers. A "tiny amount" for one Ipv4 address, but over $2bn across AWS users alone.

AWS is a cash generator for Amazon; assuming they already have the v4 assignment this is pure profit for them. Those whom are impacted financially should plan to move, unless locked in by using "native services" that aren't available anywhere else.

And people wonder why this is happening:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/5/23904375/uk-cma-m...
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/microsof...

In reply to a post by Thaumaturge:

Incidentally, I noticed recently that DNS AAAA requests for bbc.co.uk are now returning an address, rather than NODATA. A sign of things to come, maybe?

bbc.co.uk has always returned A and AAAA but www.bbc.co.uk where all the services are only has an A record.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

AWS is a cash generator for Amazon; assuming they already have the v4 assignment this is pure profit for them. Those whom are impacted financially should plan to move, unless locked in by using "native services" that aren't available anywhere else.

AWS was in fact the last of the three largest cloud service providers to charge for IPv4, Azure and Google have been doing it for some time.

Why? Due to poor IPv6 adoption, demand for IPv4 addresses is not slowing, and they cost in the region of $50 per address to acquire. Whether or not the charge is itemised by service providers, it's there, it costs business, and by extension, us.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Why? Due to poor IPv6 adoption, demand for IPv4 addresses is not slowing, and they cost in the region of $50 per address to acquire. Whether or not the charge is itemised by service providers, it's there, it costs business, and by extension, us.

Ok if they've run out of their own allocation, then buying more is expensive as you have to convince someone else to sell (e.g. whats being discussed in the Zen forum).

But the choice is the customer to use these cloud hyperscalers, they do have competitors.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

But the choice is the customer to use these cloud hyperscalers, they do have competitors.

If people move away from hyperscalers to competitors, those competitors will have to acquire more IPv4 addresses to service those new customers, and they will have to pass those costs on. There is no "win" here that does not involve IPv6 adoption.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

If people move away from hyperscalers to competitors, those competitors will have to acquire more IPv4 addresses to service those new customers, and they will have to pass those costs on. There is no "win" here that does not involve IPv6 adoption.

Or fronting with a CDN, as too many ISPs around the world have no v6 plans
I know plenty of corporates whom only have v4 exit from their network.

Edited by jchamier (Sun 18-Feb-24 12:39:21)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Or fronting with a CDN, as too many ISPs around the world have no v6 plans

I believe it would have been appropriate for Ofcom to have mandated IPv6 as a condition to operate as an ISP. Small ISPs like AAISP did it literally decades ago, large ISPs like BT and Sky managing it 8 years ago, all without regulatory pressure.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

I believe it would have been appropriate for Ofcom to have mandated IPv6 as a condition to operate as an ISP.

Would have been sensible, but I don't think Ofcom see this level of detail in their remit, in theory the market would decide.

Unfortunately the world moved on, my only option for high speed is Virgin Media DOCSIS Coax, and this very large ISP has no IPv6 for consumers. (No idea about business leased lines). In the same way Plusnet still is "in trials" for over 10 years.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Would have been sensible, but I don't think Ofcom see this level of detail in their remit, in theory the market would decide.

That is the point, 99.9% of the ISP market has no knowledge that the lack of IPv6 adoption is costing businesses money and by extension, them. Regulators need to take this into consideration.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Regulators need to take this into consideration.

I'm not sure any UK market regulator is up to that level of complexity, look at the chaos in water and energy markets.