Verizon Refuses To Provide Complete IPv6 438
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?"
bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
They'd damn well better give you a full refund if that v6 was an essential part of the contract.
If verizon's pulling this shit AND trying to keep your money they need their asses spanked in court, big time.
I don't think IPv6 is really the future any more.. (Score:1, Insightful)
I think IPv6 is going to end up as another VCD (Video CD). That is, a pre-mature solution that won't ever actually see wide-scale adoption, but will merely fill the space until the _real_ solution is invented (out of genuine necessity).. which will probably be widely adopted quite quickly.
Lets face it.. we've been on the brink of running out of IP's in the IPv4 space for _years_... and life has continued. One day we will... but I think by that point a better technology than IPv6 will have been invented to fix the problem.. and IPv6 will be viewed as a bad dream :(
That being said.. the situation you describe is complete bullshit.. and inherently _everything_ we've come to expect from a large telco
Re:bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:5, Insightful)
IPv4 Exhaustion is expected approximately 734 days from today's date. That is just about 2 years.
It takes a lot longer than 2 years to develop a networking standard, and gain acceptance from the community, and no alternative has even been proposed.
There are two solutions on the table: IPv6 and IPv4 with carrier grade NAT.
It's going to be one of those things, in two years.
Order Accepted? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think the Telcos are finished punishing us for de-regulation yet. They want us to cry for Ma Bell, and then when the rates go through the roof, we might be forgiven.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
But yeah, definitely take any and all legal recourse.
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:4, Insightful)
"Carrier-grade NAT" is not a solution, it's an oxymoron, and one that has already been rejected by the real world.
Obvious answer... (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me again how we're supposed to encourage IPv6 adoption in the face of a huge black hole like this?
Well call me Captain Obvious, but I'd say don't subscribe to Verizon. If enough people want it, eventually either Verizon will offer it or they'll go out of business. Either way it's a win for consumers.
I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sick of this excuse. Voting with your dollar works when your dollar is the only dollar.
It's not an excuse, it's a realization of the grim truth. Reread my post, we agree that it won't change Verizon's actions. It *will* free you individually from the failings of Verizon. That's about as good as it gets these days.
BGP aggregation policy (Score:4, Insightful)
I know I'm only seeing a small piece of the diagnostics here, but it's my understanding that they are correct that Verizon's end-user network should act as a stub as far as end-user traffic is concerned. If the problem is that they won't route traffic from your address (inside Verizon's /32) to another direct-allocation network that is in fact a legitimate BGP peer for IPv6 services, I'd complain to ARIN directly that their traffic is being dropped.
Re:bullshit (Score:1, Insightful)
So what you're saying is, we should start cutting their fiber until they don't suck anymore?
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:4, Insightful)
The boy who cried wolf might have turned out differently if the boy were able to predict the approximate future date at which the wolf would come, and periodically reminded people that the date was getting closer.
IPv6 adoption screwed by a few major factors (Score:5, Insightful)
First and perhaps foremost, a lot of the industry has formulated a non-trivial amount of their business plan around the artificial scarcity of IPv4. It is recommended that even residences get /48 prefixes, though some have asked that to be reduced to /56, giving every person up to 255 subnets to route, each subnet being able to host 18 quintillion hosts in a globally unique fashion. Giving a singe IP address just won't cut it since no one has bothered to do NATing on IPv6.
Secondly, no sanctioned way exists for an IPv6 only 'client' to communicate with an IPv4 'server'. I know that the engineers of IPv6 have a pure vision of a peer to peer internet where NAT is evil, but they needed to embrace it to get a very bad problem addressed. If it were baked in, then ISPs would suddenly have an incentive to migrate. As it stands, IPv6 represents only a financial burden, since it requires investment *and* they can't cut off IPv4 due to lack of interoperability. With this, suddenly, the still valuable IPv4 space wouldn't need to be given out to end customers, and IPv6 could carry them through.
One alternative would be for ISPs to start giving out private IPv4 addresses and doing the NATing for IPv4 that way, then assigning IPv6 networks for usage more in the spirit of symmetric peers. However, ISPs aren't particularly incentivized to go beyond the first step of taking away globaly IPv4 addresses. This comes to a third reason, we can still game the system with ISP level NAT a lot more since a vast majority of IP addresses in use are used by people who wouldn't even know they were behind an external NAT gateway if it happened to them one day. Most every modern internet usage is designed to tolerate NATs. Torrent and friends are more impacted than others, but most people still use http for 99% of their internet experience, and do not serve at all.
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:1, Insightful)
IPv4 is already a problem for certain industries.
Take mobile networks for example. How many cell phones are out there? How many smartphones with web browsers? How much private IP space is available? These technologies use IP, and it is becoming a serious network deployment issue. I guarantee you that there is no way in hell that Verizon would be able to get themselves a /6 (64 million ips) of ipv4 space in order to solve their problems - and that might not quite do it either. It's not just the phones, its every GSM/UTMS network device in between as well.
The average person in the first world is already probably using 2-3 IP addresses themselves, and it's only going to get worse. Just wait another 5 years until most (currently) second world countries, say another 2.5 billion people, start moving into that range.
NAT saved us a lot of time. That is why life has continued. But it's starting to reach the end of its use - we've consolidated and masked things too much. Some industries of which I have involvement are already duplicating 10/8 multiple times in order to be able to continue. IPv6 MUST happen, and preferably not too far from now.
Re:bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
...or you can speak up loudly and take them to court.
Let me guess. You're an attorney? 'Cause that's where all the dollars go when you take that action. But good luck and if you win, enjoy that coupon for a free cellphone with the purchase of another.
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sure Comcast will find it very interesting to know that their impending deployment of IPv6 to millions of devices will have all been a bad dream.
If you don't know what's actually going on behind the scenes with IPv6, I suggest you stop talking. You just make yourself look silly.
You know what else makes one look silly? When you complain about someone else's ignorance without enlightening us all as to how that person is mistaken and what the truth of the matter might be. And no, saying "Comcast is using IPV6" doesn't tell us anything about the other providers and how quickly those others are exhausting IPV4 addresses. If you're going to be this much of a dick about it, you should back it up with something more than a one-liner.
And yes, we know you're the supreme master of superior IP knowledge, your shit doesn't stink, and you can walk on water. You're just a better human being than anyone who doesn't hvave all the facts about IPV6, so your blatantly condescending reply is completely justfied. Feel better now? Good. Now quit putting down the GP and answer my request, please.
Re:bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that if you're a prisoner of a monopoly you should WHINE as loudly as you possibly can. Rather than, say, starting a competitor.. or just accepting that nothing you do in life matters.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing you do will guarantee that *every* corporation in the world will do *everything* to your satisfaction, including suing Verizon.
But if you control a company that can afford the financial resources and distraction from your business to go head to head in an extended legal battle with Verizon, then get to it and report back! I'm genuinely interested to hear the results.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, but watch for... (Score:3, Insightful)
v4 addresses will stop getting scarcer when they're in high enough demand to make it profitable for early assignees to let some of their hoarded addresses go for sale.
IANA let too many organizations grab a shitload more addresses than they needed, and now they're sitting on gold mines and aren't letting go. We already have cases of companies flatly refusing to give back their v4's. Considering the address scarcities and the potential for profiteering, who can blame them?
Re:bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll gladly start a competitor if you'll provide me with the funding. Personally, I don't qualify for the multimillion dollar loan I'd need to be able to build (or rent) the infrastructure necessary to compete with Comcast or Verizon in just one city, but maybe you do?
That said, yes, complaining about things can certainly make things better. Did AT&T charge you an activation fee or upgrade fee for you last cell phone? Complain - they'll waive it if you try. (Worked for me.) Think Comcast is charging too much? Call them and tell them you want to cancel service - they'll offer you a lower price to try and get you to say. (But don't say that. Manipulate them into it.)
Are you not getting paid what you're worth? Tell your manager, and explain why you think you're worth more - a simple e-mail along those lines once got me a $2/hour raise. (This probably won't work for salaried jobs.)
"Whining" is rarely productive. But complaining - especially manipulative complaining - can be very productive indeed.
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:2, Insightful)
Still, those ISPs can start offering cheaper plans to those willing to take a NAT'd IP address (read: charging more if you want a raw IP. This is already happening in the commercial space). The logic still works. Those who really need IP addresses will be able to pay to get them. And those who don't will work with improved NAT and related technologies.
In 734 days, you will be able to get an IPv4 address if you really want one. Still, as I said, I like IPv6. Who wants to pay a premium when the "scarcity" is artificially created by a limited number of bits?
Re:bullshit (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sick of this excuse. Voting with your dollar works when your dollar is the only dollar. When millions of other people have dollars and a good chunk of them are ignorant, your dollar won't be missed.
Let me guess: When people disagree with you, your most commonly-recited phrase when you get home (or when you log off) is "They all called me mad, but I'll show them who's mad!", right?
You're sounding like the mad scientist stereotype: Overly confident in yourself, overly critical of anyone disagreeing with you, and perfectly willing to show those fools who was mad all this time, so to speak. Because you, of course, are so much smarter than they are.
I'm not saying you're wrong (in fact, going on facts alone, you're quite right), it's just that you sure as hell aren't going to convince any of the simpletons from the village that you're right with an attitude like that, and if you start pushing them without convincing them, well, that's when the metaphorical torches and pitchforks come out of the tool shed and you learn that the power of a large group of educated stupid people is a lot greater than one guy throwing a switch and screaming "IT'S ALIVE!!!".
Re:bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
How can you vote with your dollars if they've been swallowed by the company that already cheated you?
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, if the hierarchy really is that deep it would sure make filtering out bad sites damned easy. Since only the top level routers can see outside, only one door to lock.
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:3, Insightful)
It has been rejected by the customers. That means essentially jack.
ISPs will implement it and offer their customers the choice of a NATed solution or real IP for premium price. Expect to pay more for your IP address in the future, they can charge for it, so they will. You don't like it, try finding an ISP that offers you one for free. You won't find one.
Re:Obvious answer... (Score:2, Insightful)
The purpose of a corporation is to serve investors, not customers.
You advocate dictatorship (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sick of this excuse. Voting with your dollar works when your dollar is the only dollar.
Let's see. You pick up your marbles from the big bad company, and nobody else leaves with you. So... your answer is to try and impose your will on everyone else. Maybe all those other people simply didn't care about the same issue as you. Like, maybe your opinion doesn't matter.
Re:Yes, but watch for... (Score:3, Insightful)
Patently untrue. The costs of vacating spaces is enormous. Nobody is sitting on ip's they're going to give up. To give up any portion of a /8 implies that you actually segmented your network from day one and are able to shave off those pieces. In most cases were talking about 20+ years of network growth and re-engineering. I'm sure enormous chunks are tied up and to clean that out will just never be worth the trouble.
IANA is requiring company officers to attest to the need of the remaining IP space personally in D.C. Guess what, they're denying everyone unless failure to allocate anything less than a /8 would cause economic or communications harm to a high degree. Were talking about national level impacts or exhaustion that could bankrupt a company.
Re:bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
When millions of other people have dollars and a good chunk of them are ignorant, your dollar won't be missed.
The fact that they are ignorant shows one thing quite clearly, they don't really mind. I could get up on some ideological high horse, but really, nobody cares. IPv6 may matter to you, but until IPv4 exhaustion causes enough problems, nobody else really has a reason to notice or care.
the third lets everyone hear what evils the company did and how they handle it
Evil? Really? They didn't correctly provide access to all computers using a protocol that has below 1% usage. That may be an obscure breach of contract, but calling that evil seems a bit much wouldn't you say?
thus making more people make decisions of their own.
Yes, it is your job to makes sure people make the decisions we want. If nobody cares then it is your right to impose caring upon them!
Seeing as how all of the duopolies and monopolies and x-opolies are still thriving despite the silent treatment, I would think a more aggressive approach is the only way to fight back.
More aggressive? It's their equipment, not ours? It isn't like there is a right to IPv6 access, they can choose whether or not to sell such services using their facilities. There is no monopoly either. You can use Verizon's fiber, your phone companies DSL, your cable company's cable, a satelight based service, a cell tower based service, or just forgo internet access and rely upon hot spots, your local library, or just do without. Actual real monopolies are extraordinarily rare and there are generally two ways they emerge. The first is by providing better service to their customers than all other competitors (your view of "better" might be different from the customers, but your view doesn't matter, while the customer's does). This is how Microsoft, Standard Oil, A & P, Ford, U.S. Steel, and Wal-Mart have gotten huge, and all either now or at one time had massive shares of their markets (though it is debatable how much of a "monopoly" each might have been). The second way is by getting a countries government to protect them or fund them. Amtrack, the former "Ma Bell" AT&T, countless local utilities, the health care companies is many countries and in a few states such as Massachusetts and Tennessee, most educational facilities at both primary and secondary levels, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Postal System (at least in the USA), the Social Security "survivor's insurance" pension system, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, the FDIC, the now dead proposal of a "Public Option" in health care, National Flood Insurance, and in a sense most labor unions all essentially function as monopolistic companies whom are or at one time were protected by the government. The difference between monopolies in the first and in the second is that those in the first category generally are forced to serve customers well to prevent new competition from arriving and ousting them. As you can see, this is generally futile as many of these companies don't retain their dominance for long either due to new technology ousting them due to their slower response time than small companies, or due to some competitors finding a way to beat them by doing better. Companies in the second category generally have no reason to care what their customers thing. Either regulation clears the field for them or they are subsidized to the extent that nobody can challenge them. Verizon is most certainly in the first category in the few areas it may have something even vaguely resembling a monopoly, and if they do something that angers their competitors, eventually their monopolies shall be usurped.
Re:bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Maybe, but the fact is they had a contract and they broke it. The best thing for someone to do is to sue them, which has the additional benefit of changing their long-term policy and drawing attention to their failings.Lawsuits aren't hard and you can find lawyers to take these kinds of cases for free.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't think IPv6 is really the future any mor (Score:5, Insightful)
IPv4 dates back to 1981. At the time, I'm sure handing out Class A's did not seem such a bad idea. Noone at the time expected IPv4 to be the be all end all of network addressing, they expected it to be used for awhile and then replaced by something else. Back in 1980, did you think there would be a personal computer (or several) on every desk and in every home, all connected to a global internet tying every on of them together? This is a good 10 years before most people ever heard of the "Information superhighway". The people participating and building the network, getting it off the ground, got large chunks of addresses to use as they saw fit. That sounds fair to me. Is it fair for people to wait until others made a massive investment in the network, and after it becomes wildly successful, to then demand they byproduct of their investment?
Noone could have expected IPv4 would achieve the status it has today, noone predicted address scarcity being a problem before a better protocol could be designed and implemented. Presumably the designers, being intelligent, reasonable men, expected other intelligent, reasonable men to follow them, capable of implementing upgrades to add new address space as the demand required and the technology was available. Unfortunately the internet devolved into being led by squabbling, political maneuvering, corrupt fuckheads. I don't think it's fair to blame the original designers for that.
Re:I wonder (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure about that? It's amazing how many people seem to have been against the recent war, yet the government waged it anyway...
It would have ended in 2005 if Bush hadn't been re-elected. Obviously, changing the behavior of the government by voting only works when you win.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
You try starting at the bottom and see how well you do. In fact, it is basically impossible to start any significantly-sized business from the bottom any more, at least in any competitive market, because the entrenched players have already purchased legislation (and are already working on buying more) to prevent new players from entering the market. Technical superiority is not enough, and really never has been. In order to grow a business large, you must be "in bed" with those who make decisions. Look at the last Tier 1 phone/net provider to be spun up: Qwest. The only way they were able to get enough right of way to lay enough fiber to become relevant was that their CEO left Southern Pacific Railroads after brokering a deal there that would get him that right of way from SP. (Or was it UP? I forget. The point still stands.) Qwest therefore never had to start from the bottom: they began from a position of power, and were backed by a fairly awesome amount of capital. For YOU to get to the same point, even if you had more business savvy than trump and more technical ability than everyone who wrote Unix and designed the internet combined, you would have to be likewise connected. That is very much the opposite of "Starting at the bottom".