Zen's Fibre Hub and IPv6

Came across a comment over on ISPreview suggesting Zen's new altnet aggregation setup doesn't have any IPv6 support despite Zen themselves having long supported it. This seems absolutely insane if true - I've been using v6 on Zen for years.

Anyone got any early experience using Zen over altnet infrastructure and whether v6 is a thing? This was one of the options that may have presented itself to me soon as Openreach have been dragging their feet in this area but I don't want to go back to v4 only at this point.

In reply to a post by Senn:

... as Openreach have been dragging their feet in this area ...

AIUI, IPv4 vs IPv6 is purely down to the ISP. Open Reach don't play at layer 3 of TCPIP. I am with Aquiss and have had IPv6 available after requesting it a few weeks after taking service with them. The line itself is with OpenReach and onward transport was with City Fibre initially but transitioned to BT Wholesale. IPv4 and IPv6 worked before and after with no observable difference.

@Senn

I'm with Zen via CityFibre, using their supplied Fritz!Box 7530AX router.

In the router's GUI, under Internet > Account Information > IPv6 > IPv6 Support, "IPv6 support enabled" is ticked, (by default, I would not have changed it).

Is there an easy way for me to tell if IPv6 is actually working on my connection? (my PCs all run Linux).

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Try https://test-ipv6.com

Zen used to have to request ipv6 to be enabled. No idea if still the case.

In reply to a post by MK65:

Is there an easy way for me to tell if IPv6 is actually working on my connection? (my PCs all run Linux)..

As previous poster suggests.

Also, if you run Linux,

ip a

will show all active ip addresses, both IPv4 and IPv6. You should get at least 1 IPv6 address, beginning fe80::. This will show that IPv6 is active on your PC, even if you are not getting a public IPv6 address.

ip a

I can see an fe80: address.

I can also see a couple of addresses beginning with inet6 fd64: - do these tell me anything?

In reply to a post by MK65:

ip a

do these tell me anything?

Yes. fe80::'s tell you that IPv6 is active on the PC. This is a link local address, used for neighbourhood discovery to find routers. fd64:: addresses are unique local addresses [ULA], which means that your LAN is able to operated autonomously on IPv6.

So your LAN is set up for IPv6, your problem is either with the router not being enabled for IPv6 or that Zen are not providing IPv6 to you. Try this link https://www.zen.co.uk/help-support/does-zen-provide-...

A useful utility is the ipvfoo browser extension, which will show you which IP version is active for any website you browse

@DFScale

"So your LAN is set up for IPv6, your problem is either with the router not being enabled for IPv6"

As I said in my first post in this thread, my Zen supplied Fritz!Box router has a setting to enable IPv6 which is ticked.

From your link, it looks as if I can request IPv6 activation from Zen at no cost to me.

I know nothing about IPv6: what would the advantages to me be of getting it activated and more importantly, are there any potential downsides, (eg some older devices will stop working etc)?

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I think they mean that Openreach have been dragging their feet in terms of fibre deployment, and that the first FTTP option available to them is likely to be one of the providers in the Zen aggregator scheme.

Yes this is what I meant, apologies if it wasn't all that clear. As far as I'm aware, the Fibre Hub aggregation is brand new, something different to the Zen-on-CityFibre product that has been around for a while(?).

In any case, the comment (here for reference: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/08/broadb... ) suggests that this new aggregation doesn't support IPv6 which, to me, seems absolutely bonkers.

I'm just wondering whether it's worth waiting for the boring ol' Openreach service, given that they are FINALLY building here. I've seen them around, including right outside the house, putting the fibre in. I just would have preferred the general lower cost of an altnet connection but if IPv6 is the sacrifice I'm not sure it's worth it.