Wireless IPv6

Folks,

I googled around and could not find anything on this. Can anyone
share their experience with IPv6 on the Verizon's LTE network? It is
my understanding that it would be a dual-stack service, but i have not
seen any screenshots or reviews that mention anything about IPv6 at
all from a users perspective.

Cameron

ps. T-Mobile USA has an IPv6 beta with nokia device http://bit.ly/9s0Ed3
pps. 22 pages of reviews and such focused on the N900 operating with
IPv6 here http://goo.gl/cUUga

Folks,

I googled around and could not find anything on this. Can anyone
share their experience with IPv6 on the Verizon's LTE network? It is

I had thought the capable devices weren't hitting the market for ~2-3
weeks still?[0]

my understanding that it would be a dual-stack service, but i have not

The hype and the reality... maybe not the same thing :frowning: I suspect,
reading the wording of the press releases and such the devices and
network gear are supposed to be v6 capable, that doesn't mean they'll
be deploying v6 on day-0 :frowning: I'm personally taking a 'show me' stance
on this, I HOPE vzw does the right thing and launches with v4/v6
dualstack on the devices in all regions where deployment happens. I
don't have much hope that this will actually happen though :frowning:

seen any screenshots or reviews that mention anything about IPv6 at
all from a users perspective.

I suspect you'll see something like a private-ipv4 and maybe
public-ipv6, but that's just a guess on my part.

-chris

0: <http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/112310-verizon-lte-launch.html>
- CES[1] stated timeframe for 'smartphones' to launch on LTE
1: <http://www.cesweb.org/> - Jan 6-9 - so ~2wks till launch of LTE
smartphones on vzw.

I briefly chatted with someone on IRC (freenode, #ipv6) last week who
recently discovered that the connection software for their Verizon
aircard is now picking up an IPv6 address and -- since that change -- a
NATted IPv4 address. Unfortunately I don't have contact info for this
person, but they were kind enough to share the IPv6 address they were
assigned (under 2600:1007:*, not sure if the remainder is
user-identifiable).

Not terribly helpful, I'm aware, but it at least implies that there's
still IPv4, albeit with NAT.

     Jima

Personally, I hope they roll it out a region at a time (even a "new time zone
each day" would probably be good enough), so they can shake the bugs out of
each region and lower the amount of stress on the network engineers having to
get *everything* staged at the same time.. Rolling a totally new thing out to
100% of the user base on the same day will rarely end well.

Just to update the group, a helpful person sent me a screenshot of the
VZW LTE connection manager, and it does indeed have a public IPv6
address an a 10.x.x.x IPv4 address. So, true to claim, the new LTE
service available today on USB sticks is production dual-stack.
Bravo!

Cameron

If this is LTE only the it's a "totally new thing" anyway and I doubt some extra IPv6 troubles will hurt that much more :stuck_out_tongue:

FWIW, the same does not appear to be true of the Verizon 3G network. (Not
that anyone expected it to be.) My VZW device has a NATted v4 address and
only link-local v6.

on this, I HOPE vzw does the right thing and launches with v4/v6
dualstack on the devices in all regions where deployment happens. I

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(note critical caveat)

don't have much hope that this will actually happen though :frowning:

Personally, I hope they roll it out a region at a time (even a "new time zone
each day" would probably be good enough), so they can shake the bugs out of
each region and lower the amount of stress on the network engineers having to
get *everything* staged at the same time.. Rolling a totally new thing out to
100% of the user base on the same day will rarely end well.

see note.

FWIW, the same does not appear to be true of the Verizon 3G network. (Not
that anyone expected it to be.) My VZW device has a NATted v4 address and
only link-local v6.

lack of a chipset support is a notable problem there....

joel

FWIW, the same does not appear to be true of the Verizon 3G network. (Not
that anyone expected it to be.) My VZW device has a NATted v4 address and
only link-local v6.

lack of a chipset support is a notable problem there....

My guess is that VZW 3G will never have IPv6 support.

But, it appears that anything they label as 4G or LTE will be IPv6
enabled on day 0 for all devices designed to operate on that network.
This is a very very good thing, if i understand it correctly. I also
assume that the 4G devices that have fallen back to 3G network will
not have IPv6 while attached to 3G, only 4G. The reason i say this is
that VZW is doing all the device management in 4G via IMS, which is
IPv6-only in their implementation..... so 4G attached devices must be
v6 to receive management functions, like over the air updates.

The next functional question, is the services on the google whitelist
so that it starts to move some real IPv6 traffic? The T-Mobile beta
is on the Google whitelist and it makes a big different WRT to real
IPv6 traffic in a meaningful volume being sent on the network

Cameron

Sorry, I read the original note as "it's all launching that day", not "starting on"....

no biggie, I get that they'll be launching 'cities' at a time, I'm
just hoping they'll be doing dualstack on each as they roll them out.
it'd be super nice if the only devices they permitted on were
dualstack as well (more incentive for OS and HW vendors to play ball).

-chris

I believe Verizon's specs for 4G devices required v6 support from the start:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/dvm105/blogs/ipv6/2009/06/verizon-mandates-ipv6-support.html

I seem to recall IPv6 support being a requirement for smartphones on their 3G network as well, but I can't find a reference for that.