No IPv6 For UK Broadband Users

BT (the incumbent telephone company in the United Kingdom) are in the process of spending millions of pounds on upgrading their network to an all-IP core. However, they have failed to consider 21st Century protocol support, preferring to insist that IPv4 is enough for everyone. Haven't they noticed the IPv4 exhaustion report yet?

Comments

Sounds about right

[lililalancia]

I read this snippet from Computer Weekly earlier on: - http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/it-downtime-blog/2008/10/microsoft-speech-glitch-raises.html Which pretty much sums up how not to do it!

Not all users though

[el_chupanegre]

The summary clearly fails to realise that not all broadband in the UK goes through BT's network. Virgin Media offers cable broadband through fibre optic. Don't know what their take on IPv6 is though.

Yet more FUD?

Re:Not all users though

[EdZ]

The parent clearly fails to realise that Virgin are a terrible provider (unreliable, capped transfers, packet shaping, unusually awful customer service, etc), the only users of which are those without a BT line who cannot afford to have one put in. As for their 'fibre optic' cable: It's plain and simple BS. They may use fibre between exchanges, but SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE. It's not even fibre to the kerb, let alone fibre to the home.

Re:Not all users though

[farnz]

And that's entirely the problem. Both of those ISPs are advertising native IPv6 over BT's Wholesale infrastructure. Said infrastructure corrupts all small IPv6 packets - BT's answer is to say that it's not a problem, because they don't support IPv6.

Re:Not all users though

[williamhb]

The parent clearly fails to realise that Virgin are a terrible provider (unreliable, capped transfers, packet shaping, unusually awful customer service, etc), the only users of which are those without a BT line who cannot afford to have one put in. As for their 'fibre optic' cable: It's plain and simple BS. They may use fibre between exchanges, but SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE. It's not even fibre to the kerb, let alone fibre to the home.

Depends on your region. I use Virgin Media, and there's fibre right up to my front door. Their customer service, historically terrible in the NTL days, has actually got a bit better lately too.

Re:Not all users though

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you actually read the file you linked? Virgin Media (the cable service) does very well in almost every category, in particular speed and latency. Virgin.net (an ADSL service running over BT Wholesale's lines) does badly, but this is not the cable service that GP and others are discussing.

Re:Not all users though

[farnz]

That's the problem - my provider has analysed the issue, and determined that ESR BRASes (a BRAS converts your PPP link into L2TP for the pipe to the ISP) corrupt small IPv6 packets in the process of taking them from the ISP's pipe and passing them onto my PPP link. ERX BRASes are OK.

BT's reaction to being told this is to say "so what if we corrupt packets between you and your customers? They're IPv6 packets, and we don't support that."

Re:huh?

[admcd]

Nope. This isn't a problem with CPE support for IPv6, it's a problem in BT's network.

There's some more information in this discussion thread:
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=btsupplier&Number=3448119&page=1&view=expanded&sb=5&o=0&fpart=

Misleading title

[johnw]

The title "No IPV6 for UK broadband users" is significantly misleading. BT are far from being the only broadband provider in the UK. My ISP - using ADSL over BT lines - provides me with full IPv6 connectivity and has done for some time.

BT and the other big players are targeting the mass market and Joe Public hasn't even heard of IPv6 yet, let alone asked for it. If you want competent technical support then you don't use BT or any of the other mass-market players.

Re:Misleading title

[admcd]

In this case "BT" actually means "BT wholesale", so the issue applies to any ISP which uses BT's DSL platform. This includes both AAISP (the ISP in the linked article) and Entanet (resold by various other ISPs), the only two UK ISPs I know of who offer native IPv6 over DSL.

Re:Wait a second...

[lga]

BT provides the backbone network and local loop used by most UK ISPs. AAISP is trying to provide IPv6 and can't because BT won't fix a bug in their network. Where's the FUD?

Re:huh?

[lga]

Try reading the article. AAISP states that the problem is in BT's routers and a patch is available but they would rather say they don't support IPv6 than install the patch. How is it FUD?

Non-story.

[Pahalial]

The whole issue has come about because of a bug in CISCO equipment which BT use which is affecting use of IPv6 for some of AAISP's customers. It only affects some of BT's network. Even though we believe this bug was identified and fixed by CISCO a long time ago, BT appear to be refusing to rectify the problem, preferring to simply say they do not support IPv6.

So in short, as soon as they start having to pay more for IPv4 blocks, they'll update their firmware. Merely some billable network admin hours, not millions of pounds wasted as the summary implies.

Re:Upgrading "to an all-IP core"

[caluml]

ATM, I'd guess.

I rang my (otherwise extremely good, if a little more expensive than most) ISP, Zen, and asked for v6. They said they didn't do it, as not enough people had asked for it. I asked if they'd make a note of my request - they said they would.
I offered to run an IPv6 tunnel router for them, if they'd stick it in their network, and hook it up to a v6 feed somewhere. They declined.

Re:Upgrading "to an all-IP core"

[AlecC]

Various synchronous protocols which are not IT related at all. Before the migration to IP, telecoms networks were completely different from networking ptotocols and woild never be seen inside a computer. They were based on a digital equivalent of the original analog system ogf connecting together a lot of ire pairs, so a a single conductor led from one end to the other. Teleom protocols created a logical conductor consisting of reserved bits in packets into which your data was fitted. Call setup required reserving these bit in all the packet-based links between source and destination.

Re:Speaking of IPv6

[Anonymous Coward]

The leading tech new site may support IPV6.....but Slashdot doesn't.

Re:Internet in the UK will fall over...

[jabuzz]

I take it that you have never seen any actual Roman plumbing then?

Roman plumbing was very inefficient. Firstly they had no concept of a tap, the water just flowed continuously 24/7, so huge quantities of water was simply wasted.

Secondly it was largely done in lead piping. yeah way to go there.

Thirdly there was a great deal of corruption. The amount you paid for your water depended on the diameter of the pipe coming into your property. However it was common place to bribe the local water inspector to fit a larger pipe than it said on the records.

Yes it was another 1400 years after the Romans left before plumbing became widespread again in Great Britain. However that does not mean that the Roman plumbing was some paragon of efficiency.

Re:IPv6 is a dud (maybe)

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of the work done by routers is implemented in hardware, and that hardware is specific to IPv4. IPv6 does require new routers, not just a firmware upgrade to the existing ones, most of which probably support IPv6 to some extent, but software routing IPv6 would overwhelm those routers.

Re:IPv6 is a dud (maybe)

[Spazmania]

at the hardware level, I see no reason why any hardware equipment needs modification to support IPv6, unless you rely on "firmware-accelerated" hardware

100% of the network core uses firmware accelerated hardware. General purpose computers at the moment can't reliably move data much above 750mbps between multiple interfaces.