Comcast Plans IPv6 Trials In 2010 173
Mortimer.CA writes "In a weblog posting, Jason Livingood, Executive Director of Comcast's Internet Systems has stated that they're beginning public trials of IPv6; Comcast hopes 'that these trials will encourage other stakeholders to make plans to continue, or to begin, work on IPv6 in 2010 so that all stakeholders do their part in ensuring the future of the Internet is as bright and innovative as it has been in the past.' Interested guinea pigs can volunteer at Comcast6.net (FAQ). Those who have IPv6 connectivity via other means can check out their IPv6-only web presence."
Re:Will they permit NATs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Its pretty hard to stop someone from using a NAT. Comcast can't really tell the difference between a NAT and a single machine without deep packet inspection.
At which point you just sue them for invasion of privacy, not that you'll get anywhere but its a neat idea.
The other side to that is that your IPv6 router can deal with helping IPv4 devices communicate over the IPv6 backbone as long as the backbone does the proper bridging (according to the protocol) back to IPv4, which they'd surely have to if they don't intend to break of the Internet and become their own useless island.
In short, some very smart people already thought of that problem when designing the system.
Re:Will they permit NATs? (Score:3, Interesting)
But there is. For one thing the TTL will be one lower than "usual". You can hide that, but there are lots of other ways to detect it.
The TTL will be decremented because the packet passes through a router which is performing the NAT (Linksys, Netgear, whatever). By blocking hosts based upon TTL inspection wouldn't they would preclude anyone using a home router, or more importantly, having wireless access?
Love comcast is working with it's customers (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm impressed that Comcast is talking about it trials publicly and engaging customers. Many service providers run stuff in private, don't tell their guinea pigs, I mean customers that they experiment on, and then just select whatever seemed convent for the service provider. Engaging people in a trials like this, seems win/win for the customers and service providers.
Re:Oh, well... (Score:2, Interesting)
Except for a few research networks, all V6 traffic runs through the same 'tubes' as V4.
So all else being equal, V6 data rates should be no different than V4.
But all is not equal.
V6 has several refinements over V4, which tend to enhance throughput.
Autodiscovery will have to fully mature... (Score:3, Interesting)
For what it's worth, I signed up for the trial. Despite the level-1 tech support's crappiness, and the relative overpricing of their services, Comcast's network department does a pretty good on the backend. Our area has gone from 3mbps to 16mbps (with a 50mbps tier available) in 8 years, and has already completed the analog reclamation process in our area. Good on them for getting a head start on IPv6.
I presume they are going to want to do end-to-end IPv6 eventually, instead of assigning a single IPv6 address to my modem, and then continuing to use IPv4 NAT behind it. However, if they are going to do that, several things are going to have to change:
1. Router default settings will have to change. Out of the box, most home routers use NAT by default, and, since most people don't change the settings (based on the number of 2WIRE### SSID's broadcast to my house), they'll have to redo them for IPv6.
2. Auto discovery services will have to get better. I can say, categorically, that OS X is better than Windows and Linux at automatically finding nearby machines and devices that do not have a static IP/DNS A record assigned to them. The other 2 OSes will have to catch up, because, while a quartet of triplets is annoying but manageable to type, an IPv6 address will be a bear to copy down.
3. A debate between static and dynamic IP addresses will have to take place. Ideally, a device would get a static IPv6 address assigned to it and keep it forever, no matter where it roamed and went. It'd be akin to a routable MAC address. However, if we do that, we'll run out of IPv6 addresses more quickly (though still not fast), since things like phones get recycled fairly frequently. But there are several obvious downsides to continuing to use totally dynamic IPs.
Finally, as an aside, it's interesting to me, at least, how Apple Airport Base Stations do IPv6 routing automatically via a tunnel provider (as another commenter noted). Comcast doesn't support any IPv6, but when I'm connected to my router at home I get full IPv6 support transparently. Apple doesn't even mention this as a feature on the box, and it's not highly configurable either. So why did they spend all the effort to get it that way? Are they trying to stay so far ahead of the IPv6 curve no one will ever complain they're behind?
Re:IPv6? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pinging ipv6.comcast.net [68.87.64.59]
It works for me.
$ ping6 ipv6.comcast.net
PING6(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2002:1159:44ef::226:48ff:fe12:a9a7 --> 2001:558:1002:5:68:87:64:59
16 bytes from 2001:558:1002:5:68:87:64:59, icmp_seq=0 hlim=52 time=235.216 ms
16 bytes from 2001:558:1002:5:68:87:64:59, icmp_seq=1 hlim=52 time=245.426 ms
This is through an Apple airport base station via whatever tunnel provider it uses for its IPv6 support. No manual setup, just click the buttons to turn IPv6 on and to block incoming connections.
The 2002 prefix on your ipv6 address says you're using 6to4 address translation/tunneling. The ipv4 address at the time was 17.89.68.239. I'm not sure if its your computer doing the 6to4 tunneling or your airport. I'm thinking it's the computer as its using the 2002 address as opposed to the router doing it all in the background.