Slashdot Mirror
Verizon Refuses To Provide Complete IPv6
Glendale2x writes "I'm a progressive sort of guy and I want to go full dual-stack, IPv6 for the future, etc. However I recently tried to turn up a new Verizon circuit with IPv6 (after a 6-month fiber install process), and to my chagrin the order they accepted back in May they're now saying is against their policy to provide. They're missing around 29% of the IPv6 internet and refuse to carry it. Tell me again how we're supposed to encourage IPv6 adoption in the face of a huge black hole like this?"
Except China. The latest figure I've heard is six levels of NAT in some places.
Server's overloaded. I didn't expect me complaining about Verizon would hit the front page. Trying to convert it to a static page.
this is my sig
[citation needed]
In 2003, RIPE NCC noted that estimates fell around 2012. I will grant you that 2003 is not 12 years ago, only 6, but that was a result on the first page of google for "IPv4 run-out estimates over time."
I'm unfamiliar with oil reserves and cold fusion research, but I'd like to see your justifications for those claims, too :-)
That's some fine internet tough talk, but realistically the best solution open to the common man is to simply vote with your dollars and leave. Verizon is probably happy enough to let a squeaky wheel out of any time contract, if they really are in violation, knowing that the unwashed masses will not notice these kinds of failings.
The problem is if the six month install process came with a hefty price tag (article is Slashdotted, so can't read up on it). Voting with your feet and going elsewhere implies a massive sunk cost that may not be recoverable, depending on how open the fiber accessibility is to other providers.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Coral cache: http://www.rollernet.us.nyud.net:8090/wordpress/2009/10/verizon-refuses-to-provide-complete-ipv6/
If you use the "slashdotter" Firefox extension, it will automatically insert coralcache, mirrordot, and google cache links into the summary for you.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It won't free you from the failings of Verizon if you happen to be on one of the networks they omit from their routing table.
They very conveniently lost the original order (where I disclosed exactly what I required, down to what networks I will announce) and the circuit was delivered as IPv4-only in August. With a static /29. Without BGP. All of this was a huge shock to the provisioning team on the first call when I started talking BGP for IPv4. It took over a month to get them to change it to dual-stack and re-engineer the endpoint to go to a different city that had IPv6 support after I forwarded them all of my copies. And then they pulled this out of their hat. Oh, don't forget that my account manager was fired in September and the new one won't accept my calls. It's a huge fucked up mess.
I must admit, I never figured that complaining about Verizon sucking would make the front page of slashdot.
this is my sig
Go with your state Public Utilities Commission. In my ISP days any disputes I had that I took to the PUC would get resolved rather quickly. The FCC doesn't care, Verizon lobbies them far more than a user ever could.
So the first question I'd want answered would be: which backbone provider do those blocks belong to?
A whole lot of different ones. They're ARIN's PI multihoming block.
I may be mistaken, but it's my understanding that IPv6 addresses, unlike IPv4 addresses, include information about the backbone provider, so you really can't get your own allocation from ARIN and expect an ISP to route it for you. It doesn't (or isn't supposed to) work like that, for good reason. So, if the missing blocks are people who aren't backbone providers but have some kind of back-door deal with Sprint and/or Hurricane Electric, Verizon may be in the right.
You wouldn't have been mistaken before 2006. ARIN does allow you to get your own IPv6:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2005_1.html
I believe RIPE is following suit next month.
this is my sig
It's a bit like suggesting you can sell parts of your land (real-estate) under the table, without notifying the county records office of the sale..
The problem is... there's a registered owner (or deed holder). And having someone tell you that you can use some IP addresses is useless unless you can get traffic to them.
The action required to get traffic to go to an IP address is very public, you have to announce the IP address space using an AS number.
The only way for you to do it without setting off alarm bells is to pretend that you ARE the person you "bought" the IPs from under the table, using their AS number.
Your announcement will probably be filtered, since your IP block is a portion of theirs (it's smaller than the assignment)
So the traffic goes to them... unless they happen to be an ISP connected to you, you are now in a sticky situation.
So the difficulty in simply 'acquiring IPs' under the table, is the need to get connectivity to them. Controlling that connectivity is harder, and if the company that sold you the IPs goes bankrupt, you're screwed.
You're better off just getting your ISP to allocate you the IPs. Either that... or buying/merging with other companies for the sole purpose of acquiring their IP addresses, and throwing away all else.
(Depending on how scarce IPs get)
The least bad solution with the current standards is to give to each IPv6 multiple addresses, e.g. one with the Verizon prefix, one with the Sprint prefix, one with SAVVIS. Of course, that solution assumes that the exit routers are capable of choosing the exit route based on the source address picked by the host, which is a *big* assumption. I suppose that if there is enough demand, Cisco, Juniper et al will come up with such routers.
If that works, you get the equivalent of each host having multiple "virtual network cards", one for each provider. Of course, they do not in fact have multiple cards, just multiple addresses.
Failing that, the big organizations will pay their providers large sums and get a short prefix (/32, probably) that will be routed. The small folks will be left hanging.
Fascinating. Is there a corresponding document somewhere explaining how this is supposed to be implemented? It seems to defeat one of the design criteria of IPv6, i.e., keeping routing tables simple.
You are correct that it does defeat the routing table simplicity goal because implementation of multihoming is exactly the same as it is with IPv4. This happened because IPv6 was left without a sane way to multihome. I don't know what block RIPE will use, but AFRINIC (2001:43F8::/29), and APNIC (2001:0DF0::/29) also have a similar policy to ARIN.
this is my sig