IPv4 shutdown in mobile

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

TL;DR version: the data shows you are negligent if your eyeball content
(cdn, cloud, ...) does not support native ipv6.

With the NAT and IPv4 leasing threads lingering on, i figured it was time
for an update on how the other half live

More than 1/3 of North America mobile traffic to the top websites is end to
end ipv6
http://www.worldipv6launch.org/2015-wrapup-more-than-13-us-mobile-traffic-is-ipv6-and-still-growing/

The trend is clearly growing, and as AT&T and Sprint catch up with T-Mobile
and Verizon, the acceleration to 50% should be easily achieved.
Furthermore, only one mobile carrier has iPhone dual-stacked today (afaik),
but Apple has a plan for banning ipv4-only apps and has delivered the
required features for having ipv6-only iphones in 2016 with these iOS 9.2
features

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternetWeb/Conceptual/NetworkingOverview/UnderstandingandPreparingfortheIPv6Transition/UnderstandingandPreparingfortheIPv6Transition.html

On some mobile providers, ipv6 is already dominant and ipv4 is waning. Once
iPhones updates to ipv6-only as described above, ipv4 will only be a corner
case of operations. This comes with added benefit that ipv6 is faster :

https://code.facebook.com/posts/1192894270727351/ipv6-it-s-time-to-get-on-board/

At least in mobile, the change to ipv6 has been quick and the pace is
increasing -- not just on ipv6 deployment but also on ipv4 shutdown. I know
many people liken ipv6 to "the boy who cried wolf", so be it, the
data shows the ipv6 wolf is here. Or perhapsin hind sight, we will see
the right metaphor was "the tortoise and the hare" or "the little engine
that could"... Or even better IPv4 is John Henry. It was the best in its
time, but times have changed.

CB

2

Does this mean you are negligent for not supporting IPv6 on my phone on your network?

My phone is perfectly capable of IPv6, yet because it doesn’t support your particular religion
about IPv4 translation, you refuse to support IPv6 on it.

When is T-Mobile going to fix their IPv6 implementation and stop ignoring the #1 market
leading phone manufacturer?

Owen

3

Does this mean you are negligent for not supporting IPv6 on my phone on
your network?

My phone is perfectly capable of IPv6, yet because it doesn’t support your
particular religion
about IPv4 translation, you refuse to support IPv6 on it.

When is T-Mobile going to fix their IPv6 implementation and stop ignoring
the #1 market
leading phone manufacturer?

Owen

Apple has an ipv6-only plan in the link above. They have committed to
remove the ipv4 dependent apps from the app store. Once the ipv4-only apps
are bannished, i dont see any roadblocks for ipv6 on iPhone.

While you say there is a religious war, i am saying Apple outlined a plan
for ipv6-only and T-Mobile is likely to follow that plan from Apple.

CB

4

Yet until Apple gets to that IPv6-only stage, you’re refusing to support IPv6 for those of us
that need it today even while we still need IPv4, too.

Owen

5

On 12/22/15, 1:13 PM, "NANOG on behalf of Owen DeLong"

Yet until Apple gets to that IPv6-only stage, you¹re refusing to support
IPv6 for those of us
that need it today even while we still need IPv4, too.

Owen

Owen, you¹re out of line.

Lee

6

I wonder if Tmobile realizes that when you sign up for a contract with
them using one of their phones as a wifi hotspot, the address of their
enterprise NAT is what's recorded by their form. They even make you
check a button to accept their lack of security.

Not that that could result in massive fraud or anything. Not that
massive fraud is a problem for Tmobile either come to think of it.

7

Mobile in Africa has done nothing on IPv6. South East Asia was the same
last time I was there (2012).

It would be nice to hear about Europe, the Middle East Latin America and
Canada as well, if anyone has any stories.

Mark.

8

I know of at least one mobile provider in Sweden, Finland and Germany that have IPv6 enabled for at least part of their device base.

Some have chosen IPv4v6 (providing dual stack) which means they can do this with Apple devices today, some are IPv6 only which means they're like T-Mobile waiting for the Apple App universe to come around to being IPv6 only supporting.

North America is by far the leader in number of IPv6 enabled customers which

https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/trends-visualizations-ipv6-adoption-ipv4-exhaustion-global-heat-map-network-country-growth-data.html#networks

shows. However, things are happening all across the world now... I wouldn't be surprised if we're already in the 100-300M IPv6 enabled devices range by now...

9

SK Telecom has deployed 464xlat at a large scale in Korea
http://slidehot.us/resources/applying-ipv6-to-lte-networks.482671/

10

This is encouraging to see.

None of the major mobile carriers in eastern, western, central and
southern Africa have done anything IPv6-related on their network that I
am aware about. The availability of IPv4 space in the AFRINIC region,
coupled with the ease of spending millions on CG-NAT's vs. rolling out
IPv6 means unless they start, someone's pants will be at their knees in
a non-picturesque way very soon.

The lack of interest, head-in-the-sand approach is quite alarming,
particularly as mobile networks are increasingly carrying the majority
of consumer data traffic in Africa, year-in, year-out.

Mark.

11

None of the major mobile carriers in eastern, western, central and southern Africa have done anything IPv6-related on their network that I am aware about. The availability of IPv4 space in the AFRINIC region, coupled with the ease of spending millions on CG-NAT's vs. rolling out IPv6 means unless they start, someone's pants will be at their knees in a non-picturesque way very soon.

Well, in Europe and Asia, the amount of providers that have rolled out IPv6 is not zero, but I'd say it's in the 5-10% range or something like that.

It's easier to roll out IPv6 in a mobile network if you can do it single stack, so Apple supporting IPv6 only is a major step forward (this is due to the IPv6 bearer type was introduced around 12-14 years ago, whereas the IPv4v6 bearer type is less than 5 years old and was initially a 4G only thing).

The lack of interest, head-in-the-sand approach is quite alarming,
particularly as mobile networks are increasingly carrying the majority
of consumer data traffic in Africa, year-in, year-out.

A lot of providers who have rolled out IPv6 have predominantly done so because they happen to have employed good engineers and empowered them to do things over longer time, keeping IPv6 costs down because they were done during normal hardware/software cycles, instead of a short intensive project that cost a lot of money.

I imagine that doing IPv6 single stack rollout in mobile starting now, you could be done in 1-2 years without major costs incurred, because now the handset landscape has matured enough that there are a good set of devices that support (or will support) IPv6 single stack properly. 2-3 years back, this just wasn't the case for generic bought-in-the-electronics-store 3GPP featurephone or smartphone. It's still the case that if a large part of your customer base has simple phones or feature phones, IPv6 support isn't needed. So while I do not agree that it's a great business strategy to wait even longer, I can understand those who have waited because they saw it as too hard to do, potentially because they didn't have the skilled engineers to do it. If they start now or during 2016, it's going to be a lot easier for them compared to the ones who started in 2010.

I guess there are major differences across the continent as to what network gear is used, but I know some operators who shipped their 10 year old 2G basestations to African providers, and if these are still in use, potentially even without a support contract, then these will never support IPv6 properly. Networks built like this will be laggards just the same way people running old routers won't have the right features to support IPv6 properly.

However, if you have 3G basestations with support contracts (or that at least have software updated in the last 5-10 years), then getting IPv6 only working should be perfectly doable if they upgrade the core of their mobile network.

12

In eastern and southern Africa, there is a reasonable average 3G and
4G/LTE coverage.

One network in southern Africa have upgraded 70% of their network to 4G
as part of an enhancement exercise in the last 16x months, and provide
98% 3G coverage across their country of operation. But not a peep re: IPv6.

In general, in the progressive African countries, one would be
hard-pressed to get anything less than 3G coverage in major business
districts/cities.

Mark.

13

One network in southern Africa have upgraded 70% of their network to 4G as part of an enhancement exercise in the last 16x months, and provide 98% 3G coverage across their country of operation. But not a peep re: IPv6.

Out of the 34 major mobile providers in Sweden, only one has a single peep regarding IPv6 for regular customers. All of these have ubiquitus 4G coverage and have had this for 4-5 years.

In general, in the progressive African countries, one would be
hard-pressed to get anything less than 3G coverage in major business
districts/cities.

Well, if most providers in Europe can't get this done, I am not surprised that the African ones won't get it done either. Remember that the european ones operate in an environment where RIPE went into last /8 policy almost 4 years ago, and still most of them haven't deployed any IPv6 at all yet.

IPv6 only operation for mobile is going to become fairly easy in the next few years due to the entire ecosystem maturing in this aspect, so my guess is that we'll start to see a lot more IPv6 over the next few years in mobile.

14

Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike@swm.pp.se> writes:

North America is by far the leader in number of IPv6 enabled customers
which

https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/trends-visualizations-ipv6-adoption-ipv4-exhaustion-global-heat-map-network-country-growth-data.html#networks

shows.

On the top ten country list, I see

6 European countries (Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Estonia, France, Norway)
1 African country (Liberia)
1 North American country (USA)
1 Oceanian country (Kiribati)
1 Asian country (Malaysia)

Looks like Europe is way ahead to me :slight_smile:

Bjørn