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The Internet Networking

No IPv6 For UK Broadband Users 298

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?
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No IPv6 for UK broadband users

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  • 2^32 ips (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:22PM (#25316819)

    ought to be enough for anybody

  • Sounds about right (Score:4, Informative)

    by lililalancia ( 752496 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:24PM (#25316841)
    I read this snippet from Computer Weekly earlier on: - http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/it-downtime-blog/2008/10/microsoft-speech-glitch-raises.html [computerweekly.com] Which pretty much sums up how not to do it!
    • next BT need to sort out their network architecture so that packets to your mate down the road on the same isp as you go into the local exchange and back out again, instead of go down to the local exchange, get trunked down to the isp's network, back out again to the local exchange and finally to ur mate.

      • by cjb658 ( 1235986 )

        next BT need to sort out their network architecture so that packets to your mate down the road on the same isp as you go into the local exchange and back out again, instead of go down to the local exchange, get trunked down to the isp's network, back out again to the local exchange and finally to ur mate.

        How often does that happen? Usually you're communicating with a server somewhere, or, if your ISP is smart, a caching server.

    • by Otis2222222 ( 581406 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @02:16PM (#25317673) Homepage
      Upgrading to an "all-IP" core? What had they been running on? Appletalk? IPX? Banyan Vines? DECnet?
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by caluml ( 551744 )
        ATM, I'd guess.

        I rang my (otherwise extremely good, if a little more expensive than most) ISP, Zen [zen.co.uk], 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: (Score:3, Informative)

        by AlecC ( 512609 )

        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 re

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by zoefff ( 61970 )

        sdh, atm, pdh or other transmission protocols. Or even the famous POTS protocol. See your local wiki for more ;-)

  • by click2005 ( 921437 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:26PM (#25316863)

    BT is too busy selling everyone's personal info and browsing habits to notice that in a few years their customers wont be able to do anything on t'internet because of a lack of IPv6.

    It'll give them a good excuse to jack up prices because their 21CN (21st Century Network) is about as efficient as 1st century roman plumbing and is unable to handle current traffic let alone allow for any growth.

    • by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:37PM (#25317051) Homepage Journal

      Did you know? First century Roman plumbing was actually...surprisingly efficient!

      Those Romans brought it to your uncivilized land of drunken fog-priests, and you insult them like that. And I thought British people had a heightened sense of shame!

      • by R2.0 ( 532027 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:53PM (#25317307)

        But aside from that, what did the Romans ever do for them?

      • by jabuzz ( 182671 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @06:08PM (#25321315) Homepage

        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: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by scipero ( 103758 )

          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.

          Rain in mountains + aqueduct + gravity = 24/7 water supply. Waste? So what?

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

          Hard mountain water quickly generates a coating of lime in the pipes. Lead? No problem

          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.

          Normal bureaucratic graft here. I cannot imagine any sufficiently civilized society without it.

          In short, the Romans were not backwards. I've seen (and used) plenty of Roman plumbing. Did you know that the city's system still employs some of the (admittedly refurbished) lines? Best tap water I've ever tasted.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by squoozer ( 730327 )

          Not having a tap was not that great a problem for them. Don't forget that the number of people back then was a tiny fraction of the number we have now. Most probably they were tapping natural springs and just diverting the water into a pipe. It would have been flowing away either way. Also, without chlorination you really don't want sitting water as it will gather all manner of "bad things".

          There is a lot of rubbish talked about lead piping. The actual danger of lead piping is minimal to non-existant. Lead

    • BT is too busy selling everyone's personal info and browsing habits to notice that in a few years their customers wont be able to do anything on t'internet because of a lack of IPv6.
      I find that highly unlikely, some users are likely to get stuck behind nat which is far from ideal but any non-suicidal hosting provider is going to keep thier sites availible on V4 for a long time.

      Also the protocol used on the network that connects users to ISPs is fairly irrelevent anyway since afaict users will be tunneled th

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:26PM (#25316875)

    Well I'm sure that we can address at border routers with the UK. Since they have to switch all of the bits from the left side to the right side of the tubes, they might as well do 6to4 as well.

  • Not all users though (Score:5, Informative)

    by el_chupanegre ( 1052384 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:27PM (#25316901)

    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?

    • by EdZ ( 755139 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:38PM (#25317079)
      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.
      • by caluml ( 551744 ) <slashdot AT spam ... OT calum DOT org> on Thursday October 09, 2008 @02:30PM (#25317899) Homepage
        That's not flamebait - it's informative. Virgin aren't a good ISP by most measures [samknows.com]. It's sort of the ITV, or Channel 5 of ISPs. If you're from the UK, you'll know what I mean.

        Although I'm not sure about the claim about not running fibre to the kerb.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by petermgreen ( 876956 )

          note: I'm reffering to virgin media cable here, virgin media also do a service using BT wholesale ADSL which by all accounts is shit (the samknows report uses "virgin media" to reffer to the cable service and "virgin.net" to reffer to the ADSL service).

          Umm most of the graphs are smaller is better and virgin medias line tends to be near the bottom. They do worst in the voip test but not so badly that it is likely to cause pracitcal issues. They do badly in the "current speed relative to max speed" tests but

      • by williamhb ( 758070 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @02:56PM (#25318311) Journal

        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: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      BT wholesale provide the underlying infrastructure, and then third party ISPs, or other divisions within BT, provide the IP level connectivity...

      It's possible to get native IPv6 connectivity today through several ISPs in the UK, tho it's not really an advertised service because very few people are looking for it...

      http://www.goscomb.net/ [goscomb.net]
      http://www.nitrex.net/ [nitrex.net]

      Incidentally, BT themselves used to offer an ipv6 tunnel broker service, so they clearly have some ipv6 capability.

    • Actually, I'm pretty sure BT owns the backbone network in the UK, so everything would go through them.

    • Virgin Media offers cable broadband through fibre optic.
      Well fiber optic is a half-truth. Afaict it's fiber to a local distribution point (not sure how many houses each serves off hand) and then cable TV cable to the premisis. Virgin media cable is only availible to about half of UK properties afaict. They are also not the best of ISPs but they are far from the worst (note: virgin media also do a service using BT wholesale ADSL in non cable areas. Afaict that is one of the shittiest services arround).

      There

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Yes the article is FUD ... My provider uses BT ADSL and also supplies IPv6 if you ask for it.

      The fact is that BT ADSL just supplies a pipe to the ISP (implemented originally using Frame Relay but with the 21CN project as a tunnel over IP) and it's up to the ISP to implement IPv4, IPv6, Chaosnet, carrier pigeon or whatever they want.

      Rich.

    • Be* would very likely support IPV6 I'd reckon, as they are one of the unbundled providers, and run their own network end-to-end.
  • by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:27PM (#25316905) Homepage

    I find a disturbing unwillingness to learn in the IT world.

    I too am guilty of being reluctant to deploy technologies I don't fully understand...IPv6 being one of them. (I am told it isn't THAT big a deal but still... I don't know it and I know IPv4) And it is my guess that just as many IT groups want to solve problems with MS Windows (because that's all they know) BT probably wants to solve their problems with IPv4.

    • Part of the problem with deploying IPv6 is that there are no best case practices. It's unexplored territory. Not every shop has the resources to research the protocal to find the best case practices to do the actual deployment (unless you're someone like Level3, Hurriance Electric [props to HE, their IPv6 works like a champ], and so on). As more people deploy IPv6 and learn the best ways to do it, others will follow.

    • by BobMcD ( 601576 )

      What we're missing is the need to learn something new inside the enterprise. While the major carriers might conceivably see a need to communicate with every device on the entire planet, my corporate users feel no such pressure.

      They just need to be able to hit the bright spots on the internet, send email, etc. IPv4 does all of these things, and more, just fine.

      Therefore, I will not be deploying IPv6 inside this network any time soon. Will my ISP switch me to IPv6 on the outside of my network? Perhaps, bu

      • Eventually it won't. In about 2.5 years IPv4 is going to be this island that can't communicate with a whole host of sites because they aren't IPv4 addressable because they can't get a public IPv4 address. And that problem island is going to get smaller and more disconnected as time goes on.

        So, are you going to fix it now, or are you going to sit back and sneer about how useless it all is and wait for a crisis to actually bother to do anything?

        All I see behind cries of 'NAT is enough' is some poor frighten

        • by BobMcD ( 601576 )

          In about 2.5 years IPv4 is going to be this island that can't communicate with a whole host of sites because they aren't IPv4 addressable because they can't get a public IPv4 address.

          Explain why.

          • As IPv4 addresses become scarce, people wanting to set up a random public website will be forced to use IPv6, even though it limits who can see it. Anybody who has IPv6 will be able to access that website, and anybody who doesn't won't. Some of those websites will be very useful and popular, at least in the limited community of people who can access them.

            As time goes on, there will be both more of those websites and more people who can access them. The size of the IPv6 accessible network will get larger

            • by BobMcD ( 601576 )

              IPv6(...)limits who can see it

              So we're pretending that NAT does not exist?

              Would not a single IPv6 address shared across the corporate network be able to see this hypothetical site?

    • by mollymoo ( 202721 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @02:39PM (#25318043) Journal
      They don't want to "solve their problem with IPv4". It's not like they've invested billions on 21CN and it can't do IPv6. There was some Cisco bug which meant IPv6 didn't work, so they said their wholesale broadband products (the products ISPs re-sell) don't support IPv6. The Cisco bug is now fixed, but they've apparently not deployed the fix everywhere. That's the story straight from TFA, so quite how they got that summary from it I don't know. BT haven't failed to consider IPv6 support at all, that's pure bullshit. IPv6 doesn't currently work properly on some of BT's kit, but is that because there's no demand so they haven't bothered with the fix? No, no. It can't be that. They must be idiots, or stuck in the past, or part of some fucking huge conspiracy to regress the country to the dark ages.
  • by fluch ( 126140 )

    BT ... can one expect anything useful of them??

    Have now been living 1 year here in this country and my experience with this company are enough for me (I have only a fixed line from them which I need to get internet from another ISP).

    • BT ... can one expect anything useful of them??

      True and BT will probably only go IPv6 once they are required to by the regulators.

  • Stop whining, (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alta ( 1263 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:30PM (#25316955) Homepage Journal

    I'm sure everyone is going to see that your IP address is 10.x.x.x soon. Enjoy the big NAT box in the sky. And I wish you luck getting your ports forwarded.

  • by manlygeek ( 958223 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:31PM (#25316967) Homepage
    Didn't you know that "BT" stands for "Behind the Times?" OTOH, If you insist on IPv6 you get to do lots of tunneling since almost no one else is on it either. Just goes to show you what happens to innovation in the presence of a large userbase and expensive infrastructure.
  • Overrated (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anders ( 395 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:39PM (#25317091)

    Haven't they noticed the IPv4 exhaustion report yet?

    It seems IPv4 exhaustion is the new Y2K. Lots of reports, few problems.

  • by Spazmania ( 174582 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:41PM (#25317119) Homepage

    There is a small but growing number of folks who think IPv6 may be stillborn. The rationale goes something like this:

    1. It's very expensive to upgrade an infrastructure of non-trivial size to IPv6 and that's only one of the several serious disincentives against deploying IPv6.

    2. IPv6's rate of deployment to date can only be described as an abysmal commercial failure.

    3. IPv6 fails to solve the Internet's core routing problem (reference the IRTF Routing Research Group). It's possible that a protocol which does solve that problem will leapfrog IPv6's deployment.

    4. 2^32 addresses IS enough for everybody, IF most client computers are behind a NAT firewall. The count is too low only if most client computers need their own globally-routable address. That most client computers need their own globally-routable address is a dubious claim in light of today's wide deployment of NAT.

    • by mikael_j ( 106439 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:49PM (#25317245)

      1. It's very expensive to upgrade an infrastructure of non-trivial size to IPv6 and that's only one of the several serious disincentives against deploying IPv6.

      Waaah Waaah! We cheaped out during our last hardware upgrade cycle so we'd have to upgrade everything this time around! Waaah!

      2. IPv6's rate of deployment to date can only be described as an abysmal commercial failure.

      True, this is partly because a lot of ISPs will simply say NO to customers asking about IPv6. The ISP I'm using at home basically told me they are officially "testing" IPv6 for residential users but that this testing is very very limited and that business customers who want IPv6 get to pay extra for it. So I'm using a Sixxs tunnel for now.

      3. IPv6 fails to solve the Internet's core routing problem (reference the IRTF Routing Research Group). It's possible that a protocol which does solve that problem will leapfrog IPv6's deployment.

      The main problem IPv6 is supposed to solve is the same problem that the original IP protocol was supposed to solve, the lack of end-to-end addressing on the internet.

      4. 2^32 addresses IS enough for everybody, IF most client computers are behind a NAT firewall. The count is too low only if most client computers need their own globally-routable address. That most client computers need their own globally-routable address is a dubious claim in light of today's wide deployment of NAT.

      NAT breaks the internet and is essentially an ugly workaround that results in the need for lots of other workarounds. If you think this isn't so then you need to get your head out of the sand/your ass (your choice) and pay better attention.

      /Mikael

      • "NAT breaks the internet and is essentially an ugly workaround that results in the need for lots of other workarounds."

        Yeah, but the pretty thing is that we are the ones suffering the problems caused by NAT, and spending on the workarounds. But the ISPs are the one economizing at the IPv6 migration.

        You can arguee until the end of time that on a competitive environment, if the consumers want, somebody will supply them. But that doesn't make the broadband market competitive.

      • NAT breaks the internet and is essentially an ugly workaround that results in the need for lots of other workarounds.

        Sorry, but you sound exactly like the Bellheads of yore who argued that the Internet was a horrid kludgy mess, and whay everyone actually needed was ATM to the desktop. Afterall, they argued, there's absolutely no way you could get effective video or voice over a medium with no decent QoS, end-to-end bandwidth reservation system etc.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by joh ( 27088 )

        NAT breaks the internet and is essentially an ugly workaround that results in the need for lots of other workarounds.

        It's exactly the non-brokenness of IPv6 in this regard that makes some people think twice about it. NAT is perfect for consumers, because you can't have *servers* strewn about every household with it, while you can perfectly consume (as you should). With IPv6 you can have every device having its own (even static) IP and as such can have it act as a reliably reachable server. This thought is a

        • With IPv6 you can have every device having its own (even static) IP and as such can have it act as a reliably reachable server. This thought is a nightmare for some.

          Not for me!! When you return home to find a truck-sized box of butter on your doorstep, you'll know to go to your fridge and turn off the 'automatically reorder on low stock' option on its internal webserver. Mouhhaahahahahhaa, my dreams of dairy domination will take over the world!

          Now, who needs more cheese.....

        • by Stiletto ( 12066 )

          It's only a nightmare to people who don't understand the difference between NAT and a firewall.

          • Yeah, like my parents, or just about anyone who isn't an internet engineer.

            Sorry, but NAT/firewall is convenient for them and effortless to set up.

            Before you say, I use IPv6 for some stuff at home and I was an internet engineer.

            Rich.

      • NAT breaks the internet and is essentially an ugly workaround that results in the need for lots of other workarounds. If you think this isn't so then you need to get your head out of the sand/your ass (your choice) and pay better attention.

        Sorry but no.

        For a machine that only needs to access other machines on the Net, but MUST NOT be reached at all (think: typical enterprise workstation, but that's just one scenario), NAT is THE solution. There is no better way for a machine not to be reachable than giving

      • by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @03:15PM (#25318611) Homepage

        You have succinctly summed up the opinion of most of the network-engineer types that I have spoken to on the subject. Especially the part about "breaking the Internet" -- that's a very familiar refrain.

        And you know what? You're probably right, in a hypothetical, pie-in-the-sky network engineer's world. But the rest of us have already accepted the fact that, as with so many other things in life, we're going to have to put up with what we get. I don't own an ISP. You don't own an ISP. So what are we going to do? Write letters? Threaten to take our business -- where? To the ISP down the block? Which has the exact same policies as the one I subscribe to now?

        Telling the major telcos that they need to convert their entire infrastructures to IPv6 is like telling America it needs to switch to the metric system. Again, quite astute -- so where are we on that? The engineers have pretty much gone over to metric, but the rest of us are still counting rods to the hog's-head. Think it's going to change?

        It takes force to overcome inertia. The more inertia, the more force to overcome it. In this case, the "force" is going to have to be a market force. Until the telcos see a real problem with IPv4 -- a business problem, such as being unable to reach new customers, or their services not being perceived as competitive -- they won't change. Network engineers are demanding change, but they aren't offering any reasons -- not reasons of the type that businesses understand.

        And not the type of reasons that customers understand, either. I get my email, I get my Web, I get my movies and MP3s and chat rooms and everything else. In 1988 I had a 1200 baud modem. In 2008 I have a 6 megabit dedicated Internet feed. "Waah waah," indeed! Your response? "I have my head in the sand/my ass." Well, again -- as well-reasoned and cogent an argument as that may be, it's just not a compelling reason to go IPv6, in my opinion.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by BJH ( 11355 )

          You do realise that the "hypothetical, pie-in-the-sky network engineer's world" you're talking about is actually what keeps your 6 megabit dedicated Internet feed running? That box you've got hooked up to the phone line doesn't send magic pixie dust packets.

          IPv6 either happens now, when ISPs can make an ordered transfer of customers, or it happens in two years time, when they suddenly find they can no longer get any new business.

      • NAT breaks the internet and is essentially an ugly workaround that results in the need for lots of other workarounds. If you think this isn't so then you need to get your head out of the sand/your ass (your choice) and pay better attention.
        Yeah but the few non-geek apps that are affected have already got those workarrounds in place, tested and being used by large numbers of users (afaict most home users are behind a nat router and only fairly geeky ones will set up port forwarding on it).

        ISP level nat sucks

      • 1. It's very expensive to upgrade an infrastructure of non-trivial size to IPv6 and that's only one of the several serious disincentives against deploying IPv6.

        Waaah Waaah! We cheaped out during our last hardware upgrade cycle so we'd have to upgrade everything this time around! Waaah!

        2. IPv6's rate of deployment to date can only be described as an abysmal commercial failure.

        . . . The ISP I'm using at home basically told me they are officially "testing" IPv6 for residential users but that this testing is very very limited and that business customers who want IPv6 get to pay extra for it . . .

        If I may quote you, "Waaah Waaah!"

        Do you think that companies pay for infrastructure out of their employees pockets? You mock companies because they "cheaped out" but you criticize your ISP because they charge extra for something that very few customers want.

        Every company that doesn't fail and go out of business has to balance the things their customers want badly enough to pay for against the cost of providing things. If customers want IPv6 enough to pay for it then companies will provide it.

        The reason IPv

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fgaliegue ( 1137441 )

      There is a small but growing number of folks who think IPv6 may be stillborn. The rationale goes something like this:

      1. It's very expensive to upgrade an infrastructure of non-trivial size to IPv6 and that's only one of the several serious disincentives against deploying IPv6.

      2. IPv6's rate of deployment to date can only be described as an abysmal commercial failure.

      3. IPv6 fails to solve the Internet's core routing problem (reference the IRTF Routing Research Group). It's possible that a protocol which doe

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Spazmania ( 174582 )

        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.

  • from the same alarmist that warned about global warming, market dropping and dodo extintion. Nothing to see here, move along (but not too much, you will hit someone's else IP space).
  • Misleading title (Score:3, Informative)

    by johnw ( 3725 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @01:49PM (#25317249)

    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: (Score:2, Informative)

      by admcd ( 23824 )

      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.

    • The summary is also misleading when it says "they have failed to consider 21st Century protocol support". BT no doubt have considered it; they are apparently well aware of the routers that would need patching; but at the moment IPv6 does not have enough market share for the benefit to justify the operational cost of patching and re-testing the equipment at fault; in a few years time it probably will. (It's not as if BT will have to rip out the entire network and start again, just fix those last few recalc
  • As far as I'm aware, business-grade networking stuff has been IPv6 aware and compliant for a few years now, but I've yet to see a Router marketed towards the home user that seemed to support it. I bought myself a new Wireless-N ADSL2+ router/modem comby unit only a few weeks ago and IPv6 isn't mentioned anywhere near it. I'd love to see a good Router that supported IPv6 and didn't cost 3 figures, does anyone here know of any out there?

    Is it possible for ISPs to run an IPv6 network while the home users still

    • by Fastolfe ( 1470 )

      There is a thing called "dual stack", and methods of moving IPv4 packets over IPv6 and vice-versa, so it is completely possible (and likely) that the two will co-exist for many years before the transition will be complete (my PC here is dual-stack, and has a public IPv6 address, but I'm communicating perfectly well with Slashdot on IPv4). While consumer routers usually don't support IPv6 (except with custom firmware), Mac, Windows and Linux do, right out of the box. You probably have everything you need f

    • I'd love to see a good Router that supported IPv6 and didn't cost 3 figures, does anyone here know of any out there?
      A WRT54GL with one of the third party firmwares?

  • here in the states (Score:4, Interesting)

    by circletimessquare ( 444983 ) <circletimessquar ... l.com minus poet> on Thursday October 09, 2008 @02:00PM (#25317401) Homepage Journal

    we are switching over from analog to digital television transmission in february 2009. at that date, analog tv will simply disappear. if you have an older tv without a converter, it simply won't work. to get this to happen, the government and broadcasters had to sit down, make a timetable, and implement it

    in this way, and ONLY IN THIS WAY, were we ever going to switch to digital transmission. furthermore, in this way, and only in this way, will any country ever make the switch to IPv6

    there is no free market solution to this problem. in fact, according to principles of the free market, you are punished for making the extra expense and becoming a first adapter: you spend all this time and money, and no one is going to consume what you offer on the new protocol. why? because everyone is making their material avaiable on IPv4, so that's where the audience stays. the inertia is heavy

    so either everyone switches to IPv6, or no one switches IPv6. there is no gradual changeover, because there is no incentive, and only punishment for all of the effort, for being a first adapter

    governments have to mandate IPv6 changeover. that is only way IPv6 will ever happen. doesn't matter in the slightest how superior IPv6 is. punishment of early adapters trumps all observations of technological superiority

    • "we are switching over from analog to digital television transmission in february 2009. at that date, analog tv will simply disappear. if you have an older tv without a converter, it simply won't work. to get this to happen, the government and broadcasters had to sit down, make a timetable, and implement it"

      There is a HUGE difference. You can stick to analog transmission as long as you(as a govt or broadcasting corp) like because the analog singnal won't run out. With ipv4 you can simply run out of availabl

      • from the proper perspective

        form the persepctive of the entire organic internet, yes, IPv6 is a nobrainer, all of your observations of the negative of staying IPv4 are dead on

        but from the perspective of individual companies and actors on the net, the only perspective that actually matters when it comes to actually implementing the change, btw, spending a ton of money, a ton of time, in order that 2 people are able to (optionally) view your IPv6 offerings is, again, a complete nobrainer: its not worth it

        such

  • Non-story. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Pahalial ( 580781 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @02:01PM (#25317409)

    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.

  • by jassa ( 1092003 ) on Thursday October 09, 2008 @02:02PM (#25317417)
    The solution to IPv4 address exhaustion is offshore IP address drilling, but Obama would rather punish small business owners with outdated equipment!

    ...I think I've been watching too many political conferences/debates.


  • They'll just NAT the whole country, everybody, behind one honking big firewall and monitor everybody's traffic :)

    At first this was funny, but on review it got a little bit scary.....
  • IPv6 vs. IPv4 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by savanik ( 1090193 )

    Haven't they noticed the IPv4 exhaustion report yet?

    IPv6 will continue to be used until the pain of using IPv4 exceeds the pain of switching to IPv6. The issues are many, varied, and thoroughly discussed elsewhere. My personal highlights are NAT having eliminated most of the address space limitations - most companies, even medium-large ones, can make do with 4-8 external IPs - and the complete and utter unwieldiness of IPv6 addresses. No way am I going to be able to memorize one of those, ever. DNS will become mandatory to do anything. That, and nobody use

    • by Shados ( 741919 )

      DNS will become mandatory to do anything

      Oh that would be something. They need to let us register domain names that look like IP addresses... add sub domains, and I could map something in the format XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX to some IPv6 address! Epic!

  • While I don't know of their entire network structure, I've been trying to get an IPv6 block from Qwest in the USA for over a year now. The last thing I heard from them is they "might" be "beta testing something" next year.

    I'll admit I haven't actively looked in about a year, but I don't believe there are any broadband ISPs in the USA actively working on IPv6.

    Considering the figures for IPv6 that have been paraded around- everyone should be able to get their own block, and every device can have it's own IPv6

    • by neowolf ( 173735 )

      I meant to clarify too- this is for a DS3 line for the business I work for, not just something like DSL at home.

    • This does not surprise me. I have lived in areas where you pretty much have the choice in Broadband between US West and Cox. US West was AWFUL, and everyone thought that when Qwest acquired them, everything would change. It soon came apparent that all Qwest did was slap their name on the side of the trucks. For internet, at least, we ditched them after another year of putting up with their crap and went with Cox.

      I am so glad I live in an area now where I don't have to put up with Qwest. I had SBC who bought

  • Do you actually believe they'd do something good for their customers?

    Our lines are way behind, and we don't even have the excuse of the low-density population the US does.

    The UK is by far behind when it comes to this kind of thing, and it's only getting worse.
  • Speaking of IPv6, you'd think that the leading tech news site would, in 2008, be supporting it.

    $ dig +short slashdot.org aaaa
    $

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