Giganet | IPV4 Pings drop when IPV6 enabled.

Hi all.

I should call my ISP Giganet, but thought I would ask around on here first.

I've just moved over to Giganet via CityFibre and ended up with CGNAT.

I could pay £3/month for a static IP with port forwarding etc, however, I chose to use Cloudflare tunnels to access my home network instead.

I was also wondering if I could access my home network using the ISP supplied IPv6.

Now to the point.

When I enabled IPv6 on my TP-Link Archer AX6000 router, I noticed the pings that I was running to 1.1.1.1 & 8.8.8.8 started to intermittently fail, and my streaming radio was dropping.

The pings i was also running to my router 192.168.1.1 and the pings to the new ipv6 address 2a05:87c3:x1x1:cc33:gf12:y7ll:dc65:g1187 (generic address) continued responding as expected.

When i disabled the IPv6, the connection remained up and no packets were dropped for over 30 minutes.

The router is configured as below

Case 2: IPv4 Connection Type is “PPPoE”

1. Select PPPoE. Enable Share the same PPPoE session with IPV4.

If Your ISP Provided 2 Separate Accounts for the IPv4 and IPv6 Connections:

Uncheck the Box for “Share the Same PPPoE Session with IPv4

Manually Enter the Username and Password You Were Given By Your ISP for the IPv6 Connection

2. Go to the Advanced Settings Tab, Select Auto under the option for “Get IPv6 Address”.

3. Select Enable in “Prefix Delegation”.

4. Click Save.

And just a jpeg showing the pings drop.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/69c65mh19soo0voxim2o6...

oh, and the last thing. Different ipv6 test sites give different results advising if my setup will work with ipv6.

It's all working now.
I've no idea why, the config is the same. Maybe it was just a few reboots to the router at home.
IPV6 sites are reachable.
Or GIganet support did something when I raised a ticket?
It's been fine for days now.
Speeds are good according to the Eero router which is connected in bridge mode, just to assist the wifi indoors.
My speedtest app installed in a raspberry pi has sporadic results.
Previously on VM 1G, the download always logged as higher than what i am currently getting.
Do i trust the speedtests on the pi? I used too, not sure now. Maybe i just need a better server.
I have no user account portal, i was never provided one.
Any info i require from GN, i need to contact support.
I have been placed onto a CGNAT ipv4 network, but i also have GN ipv6,
I can access ipv6 websites, but I cannot access my own network via ipv6 due to my ipv6 next-generation tplink routers firewall not allowing it.
I have not checked if ipv6 firewall works via the amazon eero.
I am able to access my own network via cloudflare tunnels, so tbh, im good.
Biggest letdown personally for me, is the lack of access to a portal to check my usage, and all the other bits relating to the account.

Edited by Mitchy_mitch (Thu 07-Sep-23 07:28:12)

I'm on Giganet, but via OpenReach. They may have me on a different backend too - I know gradually they are moving over to CGNAT, but not sure if that is OR+CF

Like you, I have my eero in bridge mode. It does work as a router, but I find I get 1-2ms additional latency. It also has no insights via logs, no ability to support DoT/DoH secure DNS (eero secure isn't suitable).

My service is 500/70, and other than a bad day or two a few months ago with routing to some sites, I can consistently get full speed (to around 520/72). I have ipv4 semi-fixed (ie I don't pay), and ipv6. Not seeing any ping tests. macbook & apple tv are both wire connected (Fritz 7530) and get full speed. And via the eero my phone can also get full speed

Connection is reliable - I don't see dropped pings

I'm in Brighton, and pings to london core sitesare around 5ms (I've seen the odd one down to 3-4ms). I have a feeling via CF may be slightly better.

I do have a user portal, but it only shows sessions & my allocated ipv4 address/ipv6 prefix

Overall decently happy. Cityfibre are due to install, at which point I may switch, and can then choose ISP again.
I have no particular reason to change for now but always worth keeping an eye on speeds/latency, pricing - and the ability to get 1000/110 which they don't offer on OR (other providers do)

Edited by planetf1 (Fri 22-Sep-23 18:33:31)

They are moving everyone to the new network 2 CF&OR. And are phasing out Network 1. I'm on cityfibre and was moved to the new network last week. I lost my static IP and my stats in my control panel. I am now under CGNAT. I have tried getting a static IP but they are having huge problems at the moment i have support tickets open and they have told me that it is a very complex issue involving multiple teams. So nothing is going to get sorted anytime soon. Pings are good in Northampton 3/4ms but ive notice the speed isn't as good as it was on the old network. Ive decided to move to a different ISP.

Edited by jalzoo (Sat 23-Sep-23 16:59:38)

Ah so OR too. Oh joys, I can't wait ....

I'll see what happens when it happens. I'm not so bothered about an external facing ipv4 address in theory, but it could get annoying. Will have a look around at ISPs. Latency/reliability is important but also pricing

We also have cityfibre deploying in the area (as they have for over a year) so at some popint may do OR->CF to get the symmetric upload.

The new network is provided by "ALLPOINTS FIBRE NETWORKS LIMITED". Since the move i have noticed that there is a lot more buffering on certain streaming platforms. Browsing feels a bit more sluggish than before.. speeds to london servers give me 820mbps where as the old network always kept me above 930mbps. So it would appear that the peering is worse than before. The average consumer probably wouldn't even notice the change. I am however slightly annoyed that without prior warning they are able to do such a big change. I had e-mail servers and VPN servers running before. All that is now gone currently without anyway of getting a static IP. I don't want to deal with cloudflare tunnels. Have a look on trustpilot you will notice a few negative reviews about the new network.

In terms of naming, this is down to their business restructuring -- all these companies are under 'Fern Trading' & they decided to go with allpoints for the branding of the network infrastructure. The retail services will be branded cuckoo

So in itself not a concern. However I guess there's also associated technical consolution .. so these observations are concerning. I'll be keeping a close on eye on this looking at alternative providers should I need to switch.

The biggest impact on browsing being sluggish is often DNS
(Actually it's always DNS ... )
but it could also be throughput, general latency, or subtle factors like the network knowledge of the subnet/prefix you are using, which can affect what results DNS servers return (whether using client-subnet or not)

Also worth mentioning I've had some issues with the Eero itself. It certainly adds latency (usually 1-2ms), more jitter, and I've found it less reliable negotiating ipv6. On a few occasions it seemed to get bogged down with much higher added latency across wifi and wired (this could be some local interaction, who knows, since it has zero user-accessible logging/control). In all cases my frusted Fritz!Box 7530 (as zen provide, though that was sent back, and this was a 2nd hand ebay purchase when I was using their mesh) was stable/low latency, but of course I've not been migrated yet!

I use Opnsense on an optiplex 3020. It gives me much lower latency than any other router i have had easy to setup and more powerful than any consumer router you can buy. I managed to get a static IP from giganet that is now working. They phoned me today which was a surprise. I'd kinda given up on the idea but hats off to them they sorted it.

That's good to hear giganet are getting you sorted.

Back in the early days of broadband - 2000/1/2 onwards - I used to use my own routers ie on PC. Now I'm trying to keep things simple & low power, but totally agree that opnsense, openwrt & other stacks (esp. built in linux) are another level, and some, in terms of flexibility.

The current router has some DNS limitations - so whilst that's easy to run on my pis (probably alongside dhcp) it's more boxes, more to go wrong.. so I may yet go for a more flexible router. For more fancy firewalling/SPI of course this is required.

Specifically on latency though, I can't say what is especially good, bad. I used to worry about milliseconds, now I'm looking at (albeit hundreds of!) microseconds - too obsessed, and was surprised at the difference between the eero & fritz (both wired). Of course local switches are a factor too, but just local lan ping pi<->eero is typically 0.6ms +/0 0.1ms , vs around 0.20ms +/- 0.02ms for pi<->fritz - so noticeable difference in absolute latency and variability.

Once on the lan this is magnified with 1-2ms more *on average* and much more variability (several ms).

My guess is the fritz, whilst older, has better offloading from the main cpu. The eero - which also runs quite warm - not so much, or is swamped considering it's future wifi network, even though it's currently alone. Or maybe it's just struggling with PPPoE as some stacks ie BSD do (eero only added it a few years ago)

eero is also awful at configuration changes. firstly it's very inflexible with no logs, secondly almost every change requires a 5 minute reboot.

I don't dispute it's wifi performance though, signal/throughput are great, and for most ISP users who are using the provided modem, it's a well specced choice with some imperfect, but easy to use functionality

What sort of local lan latency do you get (esp linux<->router ?)