Virgin Media IPv6/DS-Lite

L1011

Has anyone any details on what Virgin have done in the past week or so with IPv6/DS-Lite?

Noticed on a site that would be IPv6 enabled that I was actually connected over v6 - 2a02:etcetcetc address

Still have what seems to be a dedicated v4 address, but my router has grown various v6 options and only shows the v6 IP and DS-Lite details.

Its one of the crap Technicolor ones - which I thought were totally EOL.

Damien360

I had the same with the same router and requested to revert back to IPv4. Look at your firewall settings. There is a IPv4 firewall but also a separate IPv6 setting. You will also have a fixed IP in DHCP address page of 192.168.0.2. UPnp does not work, port forwards don't work, VPN issues are common. Disconnects are very common. Ring VM and request a return to IPv4.

Edit : I should add that ds-lite is IPv6 encapsulation of IPv4. Therefore your IPv4 is carried by the IPv6. So you have both addresses........as far as I understand it

L1011

Hard to tell if disconnects are any more frequent because the Wifi is so utterly crap on it. Have 5Ghz on (as it can't do both...) so used to it dropping out as even 5m away can be 1 bar on my laptop.

Much as asking to go back to v4 is retarding progress for even longer I think I probably will if I run in to other problems. Its common on dslite to have only NAT IPv4 and hence no personal IPv4 address; at this stage of the evening/morning I'm not bothered checking

Packet

It's super regrettable how Virgin have done it. Most of the Liberty Global Group is introducing DS-Lite. The one exception I know of is Telenet in Belgium. Their local staff had enough control of the network to do it using full Dual-Stack where the user still gets a personal IPv4 alongside the IPv6 prefix.

If Virgin introduced a Dual-stack mode on their Residential Gateway like Telenet have then when the tiny minority of users that notice they're on DS-Lite complain they could be moved to Dual-Stack instead of Single-Stack IPv4.

ED E

UPC/VMI have always been one of the most profitable segments as they penny pinch left right and centre. That won't change until their board see a mass exodus.

dub45

The downside of ds-lite for anyone interested:


"

IPv6 DS-Lite does not support all standard IPv4 functions


Which functions are no longer available with IPv6 DS-Lite?

IPv6 DS-Lite means that IPv6 configured systems normally communicate directly via IPv6. To make IPv4 systems accessible, servers will be made available to convert internal home network IPv4 addresses into public IPv4 addresses.

IPv4 systems establish a connection via a central NAT server. NAT is no longer required in IPv6, and so each IPv6-capable device has a public IPv6 address. Due to the absence of the NAT server, the following functions and settings are no longer possible with IPv6:

Bridge mode
UPnP
Port forwarding / forwarding
Port triggering
DMZ hosting


With IPv4, the above-mentioned functions and settings can be configured directly on the modem.

Customers who are reliant on IPv4 standard functions and settings can submit a request to our customer service to be transferred to IPv4.

It should be noted that IPv4 and IPv6 protocols are not able to communicate with one another. It is therefore not possible to access a purely IPv4 device from a purely IPv6 computer and vice versa.

"

A customer can request to be reverted to an ipv4 address but this can change at the whim of VM:

Originally posted by Virgin Media: Brian

To answer your further questions - as we mentioned, we reserve the right to change your connection specifics like your IP address if network maintenance or upgrades require this. That can happen without a bundle or an equipment replacement or change but if you see any issue with your connection we'll look into this with you.

If you're changed to IPv4 this may revert to IPv6 if further works require this but if that happens we can follow up with you.

An account cannot be "flagged" for IPv4 permanently.

In short - connection details can change, any network changes are tested before they're put in place to ensure they don't cause issues for you but if at any time those changes adversely effect your service we'll do everything we can to resolve it.

Also it should not be noted VM do not warn new customers about the use of ds-lite: they introduced it without telling customers and they denied point blank for a considerable period that it was actually in use.

Packet

The sad thing is their network supports both IPv4-only and IPv6-only (with DS-Lite) so it would just be a little bit of IT work and an update to the modem firmware so support a full Dual-Stack mode. They could still achieve the aim of reducing the amount of public IPv4 addresses used while letting the small percentage of customers that care retain a personal IPv4 address.

L1011

Hadn't got around to asking, but they put me back on v4 only there about twenty minutes ago - involving two router reboots, without notice, while working from home. Incompetence as always.

L1011

In the intervening weeks I've bounced between the same IPv4 address and DSlite with a different (presumably shared) IPv4 on that side of the stack.

I noticed today an Eircom line on v6 so clearly the address pool issues have bitten everyone.

Cuddlesworth

Current market value of a large IPV4 address range is close to a 100 per address. In theory, Ireland alone has ipv4 assets of 70 million. There isn't a change in hell of Liberty global implementing dual stack out of the goodness of their heart. And there will be a peak value for IPV4 at some point, services globally are finally moving to IPV6.

rogue-entity

Packet wrote: »

If Virgin introduced a Dual-stack mode on their Residential Gateway like Telenet have then when the tiny minority of users that notice they're on DS-Lite complain they could be moved to Dual-Stack instead of Single-Stack IPv4.

Meanwhile those who genuinely want v6 addresses rely on tunnels and other ISPs are equally silent about their implementation plans so it's not like you'll get a useful answer from the sales team. Pity Ireland doesn't have an ISP like A&A

Packet wrote: »

The sad thing is their network supports both IPv4-only and IPv6-only (with DS-Lite) so it would just be a little bit of IT work and an update to the modem firmware so support a full Dual-Stack mode. They could still achieve the aim of reducing the amount of public IPv4 addresses used while letting the small percentage of customers that care retain a personal IPv4 address.

Oh I am sure they provide this for their business customers which is available to residential properties but it costs more.

My lament is the lack of useful technical information and that you lose the ability to bridge the device (they could allow it, but you need the v4 tunnel information). Do they give you more than a /64 so you can properly subnet v6 behind your own firewall? I can tolerate double-NAT but I'd rather have routing, yet I've never seen an option to configure a static route on those cable modems. Worst implementations Ever

L1011

L1011 wrote: »

In the intervening weeks I've bounced between the same IPv4 address and DSlite with a different (presumably shared) IPv4 on that side of the stack.

I noticed today an Eircom line on v6 so clearly the address pool issues have bitten everyone.

The thing is, Eir aren't using DS-Lite. It's normal dual stack with public IPv4 and v6 addresses. Right now I have a 95.44 v4 and a 2001:bb6:7000::: v6.

Packet

Karsini wrote: »

The thing is, Eir aren't using DS-Lite. It's normal dual stack with public IPv4 and v6 addresses. Right now I have a 95.44 v4 and a 2001:bb6:7000::: v6.

Eir have bought some IPv4 on the transfer market so that they don't have to introduce CGNAT in fixed broadband. One of the UK DWP /16s is registered to eir now and officially is IE space. Hopefully the purchasing of IPv4 will continue until IPv6 is widely adopted.

K.O.Kiki

I'm losing connection every f*cking day!

Sick of this sh*t!

Damien360

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

I'm losing connection every f*cking day!

Sick of this sh*t!

I switched to my own router 2 weeks ago (netgear R7000) and now the virgin box is just a modem. Since doing that I have not had a single disconnect. Before that it was daily.