Comcast’s Xfinity Internet Now the World’s Largest Native IPv6 Deployment

http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcasts-xfinity-internet-now-the-worlds-largest-native-ipv6-deployment

by simon_vetter • 13 years ago

44 46 13 years ago

corporate.comcast.com

ancarda3• 13 years ago

Google has some interesting stats on IPv6 usage: http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

Currently ~2.53% of traffic going through Google is over IPv6. Adoption Rates:

    Belgium: 4.1%
    Peru: 4.26%
    USA: 4.88%
    France: 4.91%
    Germany: 5.24%
    Romania: 7.63%
    Switzerland: 9.47%

guyht• 13 years ago

Any idea what causes the spikes in the graph?

ancarda3• 13 years ago

It seems to be highest over the weekend, so perhaps the drop is caused by employees at offices with no IPv6 connectivity?

samspenc• 13 years ago

According to the page Comcast linked to: http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/

in terms of percentage deployment, Google Fiber is at #4 with 67.05% .

TrainedMonkey2• 13 years ago

Comcast had been somewhat unstable for me since they rolled out IPV6 in my area. Before that 4 years of being rock solid.

On the bright side - dual stack indeed works, even though neither IPV4 nor IPV6 can keep ping going without dropping any packets for more then few minutes.

ars• 13 years ago

Check your cable modem SNR.

Also, do you have a DOCSIS 3 modem?

Aloha2• 13 years ago

SNR is on the right line there - I'd have him look at the splitters inline between him and he curb.

TrainedMonkey2• 13 years ago

I think last time I checked SNR was close to perfect, with nothing interesting going on in the cable modem logs (I will definitely double check tonight). I got SB6141, so DOCSIS 3 is a go.

devicenull2• 13 years ago

It's too bad that other providers are not offering this yet. For example, my provider says:

At this time Optimum is not providing IPV6 addresses. In the future we will support users wishing to connect to IPv6-only sites. Currently, web site operators today are compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6 to ensure their sites are reachable by everyone. When IPv6 becomes the standard, which currently it is not, we will provide support for it.

If you don't have native IPv6 yet, ask your ISP why!

ams6110• 13 years ago

Why do I need or want native IPv6? Everything works fine on IPv4 NATed behind my home router.

dubfan• 13 years ago

Because to traverse that NAT, you need to either forward ports manually in your router (one of those activities that seems second nature to techies but is obscure to everyone else) or use UPnP (an ugly, insecure hack). IPv6 solves the need to resort to this.

SudoNick• 13 years ago

Lets ask the other question too: why do I not want IPv6?

It seems to me that NAT serves a very useful role in terms of helping to hide information about your internal network (the devices on that network, their roles and activity, etc).

I'm not well versed in IPv6 address assignment or Comcast's setup, but IIRC there are scenarios (SLAAC?) where IPv6 IP Addresses include an Interface Identifier that is derived from the manufacturer assigned hardware address. Which would allow a device's activity to be tracked over time and across the different networks it connects to. Which can reveal information about the type of device and potential vulnerabilities (to those who have access to the hardware address assignment database). Which can even reveal information about who purchased the device (to those who have access to purchase records that contain the device's hardware address).

ancarda3• 13 years ago

When IPv6 becomes the standard, which currently it is not, we will provide support for it.

Except that it won't become the standard if nobody adopts it.

devicenull2• 13 years ago

I never said it was a good reason :/

p1mrx2• 13 years ago

When IPv6 becomes the standard ... we will provide support for it.

Here's a standard you can refer them to: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6540

Aloha2• 13 years ago

I still can't get it here. No clue when either - so frustrating.

briffle• 13 years ago

Meanwhile, Charter cable's IPv6 page hasn't been updated in over a year, including hints at business test deployments in Q42012. I'm sure there is someone behind the scenes working on it, but nobody I have asked (I'm a fiber business customer) seems to know who to talk to, or when its getting rolled out.

p1mrx2• 13 years ago

Still waiting for Hacker News:

    $ ping6 news.ycombinator.com
    unknown host

Funny thing is, this site runs behind Cloudflare, where IPv6 is available by checking one box. Although that will cause IPv6 addresses to appear in the CF-Connecting-IP header, so perhaps the devs can't figure out how to manipulate them, or they just don't care.

kogir2• 13 years ago

I think IPv6 is similar to XHTML. Not backwards compatible with no clear benefit for most users. I'll wait for what follows (HTML5), or at least wait as long as I can.

trentmb• 13 years ago

I can't wait for AngularIPvNode.asm.js

agwa2• 13 years ago

It's not going to play out like HTML5. There was no real urgency to replace HTML4, so we could wait until something better than XHTML came along. The IPv4 address shortage is urgent, so we're going to have to use one of solutions available now, which is either IPv6 or carrier-grade NAT. IPv6 may have its flaws, but carrier-grade NAT is far worse. While an ordinary user might not see the difference, website operators certainly will, since carrier-grade NAT makes it impossible to track and block abuse (without substantial collateral damage).

I imagine that HN uses IP addresses extensively for bans and voting-ring detection. Already, some ISPs (e.g. T-Mobile) are giving users public IPv6 addresses and private IPv4 addresses that are NAT'd. In order to distinguish between different users of these ISPs, HN would need to support IPv6.

Other ISPs are worse and are just doing carrier grade NAT without IPv6 (mainly in Europe/Asia, though Verizon has announced they will start doing this to some of their DSL customers in the US). For these users, HN supporting IPv6 would do no good, except to show to these ISPs that there is a point to them deploying IPv6. (Yes, one site is just a drop in the ocean, but if everyone did their part and adopted IPv6...)

btbuilder• 13 years ago

Once I noticed that Comcast was IPv6 enabled in my area switching it on was as easy as checking a couple of boxes in my airport express. One was to enable IPv6 and the other was to block incoming IPv6 connections.

I have not noticed any issues since enabling it. Dual stack seems to work well. As browsers seem to choose whichever is faster I have seen some behaviour where Google thought I was accessing gmail from multiple locations at the same time when infact I had switched from IPv4 to IPv6.

kogir2• 13 years ago

Anyone who's rolled out IPv6 on a large internal network or public facing site, why did you bother? Right now it seems like more work and complexity for exactly zero benefit.

dingaling• 13 years ago

- IPv6 multicast addressing is a real boon on an internal network; the ability to address entire classes of nodes with one address.

For example, in IPv4 how would you implement a quick all-routers heartbeat script? In IPv6, just ping ff02::2.

- Multihomed hosts are a cinch ( scope identifiers make it easy ), and inversely so are unihomed hosts with multiple addresses. No messing with virtual interfaces like IPv4 requires, just bung another IPv6 address onto the interface. I have some hosts with > 10 addresses on one interface, each aligned to a particular service.

- Link-local addressing just works without any need for messing with DHCP and ARP like IPv4 requires. A new client joins the network, immediately generates a LL address and is addressable, all without external assistance. It's beautiful.

- Router Advertising in my experience has proven much more reliable than DHCP, and much faster. There are still some issues with rogue RAs, however.

Comcast’s Xfinity Internet Now the World’s Largest Native IPv6 Deployment

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