Verizon at Home

[#1]

If you’re not already wearing it, time to put your geek party hat on. After all, June 8 is World IPv6 Day and a global one-day event is taking place on the World Wide Web.

Many of you have probably heard of IPv6 by now and those with their hats on know that IPv6 stands for Internet Protocol version 6, the new Internet addressing system meant to succeed IPv4, the current addressing system that is running dry of addresses.

One obvious question: What ever happened to IPv5 and why didn’t it get its own day?  Turns out, number 5 – also called Internet Stream Protocol – was developed more than 30 years ago, but never caught on and was eventually left sitting on the side of the information superhighway.  Rather than label the next effort at a new addressing as IPv5 – maybe not such a lucky number – we moved on to IPv6.  The new system is expected to expand IPv4’s 4 billion possible Internet addresses to roughly 340 trillion trillion trillion.  What is that, 3,400 decillion?

That brings us to June 8, IPv6 Day sponsored by the Internet Society and an opportunity for Internet industry leaders to test the new system and learn some lessons on how it will be used down the road.  As one of those leaders, Verizon is participating at several different levels.  What you might not know is that Verizon already has a lot of experience with IPv6, from our work as far back as the 1990s in developing a high-speed network that was one of the first to carry native IPv6 traffic, to today’s use of IPv6 on the 4G LTE network.

Verizon’s FiOS network also will be participating in the grand IPv6 demonstration to the extent that it will be making the FiOS TV Central application IPv6 friendly.  Those wanting to test their ability to access the application with IPv6 need to know a couple of things first.  If you want to access FiOS TV Central features, such as the DVR manager controls, you first have to be a FiOS TV customer with an account at FiOS TV Central.  You’ll also need to have an IPv6-capable PC or LTE device and will have to have an ISP that is providing IPv6-enabled connections.  FiOS TV Central will be participating between 8 p.m. today, June 7, and 7:59 p.m. tomorrow, June 8.

As is the case today for many ISPs, content delivery networks, website owners and hardware and software developers, World IPv6 Day gives Verizon the opportunity to test drive some of our application and system work that is being conducted as part of the company’s migration to IPv6.

It’s important to note that moving to IPv6 will allow long-term growth for Verizon’s IP networks, along with potential innovations for our wireless and wireline IP and data services. It also holds potential for new frontiers for future business growth.

The so-called “dual-stack” technology Verizon currently is deploying will permit support of both IPv4 and IPv6 and aid a smoother transition to the new protocol.  Various Verizon products and services for both consumers and businesses will become IPv6-enabled over the next few years.

We’d be curious to hear how some of you are observing IPv6 Day and what thoughts you have about the new protocol.    

[#2]

It's too bad my brand new LG Revolution is not testing successfully on the Google IPV6 test page. My old Droid 1 and MacBook test just fine. ipv6test.google.com/ ******************************** Ready for the future of the Internet? Looks like your connection isn’t ready for IPv6. This may be due to problems with your home router, operating system, or ISP. For help resolving these issues, visit the Google Help Center. If you don’t fix your connection, you may experience severe problems connecting to Google and other sites on World IPv6 Day, June 8. Learn more about IPv6, or read about World IPv6 Day. © Google **********************************

ESC-0607

[#3]

No love for us DSL users? ;(

[#4]

Is this where we are at? Or will FiOS actually be issuing IPv6 addresses for this test?

Teredo_tunneling?

[#5]

What are Verizon's actual plans for rolling out IPv6? I think my sites are ready, and they all have AAAA records, but I have no way to test that for myself without IPv6 at home.

Will FiOS users actually start getting IPv6 at some point soon? It's much needed as other ISPs start to impliment it and the web transitions.

[#6]

Thank you to everyone for your questions about FiOS, DSL and IPv6.

While FiOS Internet and Verizon HSI do not yet support IPv6, they will in the future, and World IPv6 Day gives Verizon the opportunity to "test drive" some of the work we've been doing with applications and systems as part of our migration to IPv6.

Bill

[#7]

I'm observing IPv6 Day by struggling to grasp the Verizon residential IPv6 issues.

Test-ipv6.com (when it is not being overloaded) gives me "10/10 for your IPv4 stability and readiness, when publishers offer both IPv4 and IPv6".  So I guess congratulations are in order for achieving a residential service goal.

It also gives "0/10 for your IPv6 stability and readiness, when publishers are forced to go IPv6 only", even when I enable IPv6 on my Mac and Firefox and enter Hurricane Electric's IPv6 DNS address in my Mac's DNS server list.  I somewhat expected this given not finding any evidence of IPv6 support in Verizon's Actiontec FIOS or Westell DSL gateways.

So my first question is, is all I'll need to run an IPv6-only home network and connect to a remote IPv6-only Web server (at least with tunneling through IPv4) a software/firmware push from Verizon into existing FIOS/DSL customer equipment?  Or is hardware replacement necessary?

My second question is the same except with without any IPv4 tunneling (possibly excluding within "the company's IPv4 MPLS core"), just apparently pure IPv6 at the ends.

My last question is about the timeframes for those.  Even if Verizon has not issued public information, an unofficial personal ballpark opinion would still be interesting.

Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this.

[#8]

A connection running in Dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 should be able to achieve a 10/10 on both tests over at test-ipv6.com. If it doesn't, something is wrong with the connection that should be addressed or the test is simply having issues. If you're getting a 0/10 on the IPv6 test, it's a good idea to check out the details of the test. Often times, you can visit websites using their IPv6 address in brackets, however the site will fail to load if you try to use it with a Domain Name, even if your DNS server supports the lookup of AAAA records. That would be the reason for the 0/10, but nothing should be broken on your end. It's just the way a basic Teredo tunnel tends to work on a default copy of Windows.

Despite not having IPv6 connectivty at my home, I can achieve 10/10 on IPv4 and 7/10 on IPv6. This is on my Windows PCs as well as my Linux PCs. I've achieved this by modifying settings within Windows to be able to use Teredo for more than simply obtaining a 6to4 address, and the fact that I've set up my route (An ActionTec MI424WR router, used to be used with a FiOS installation, now it runs on my DSL with DD-WRT installed instead of the Verizon firmware). DD-WRT was configured to tunnel IPv6 traffic through my web server, which does have IPv6 addresses assigned to it as well as IPv4 addresses. The Linux PCs didn't need any additional configuring as those pretty much worked right out of the box after setting up the option for Link-Local addresses. Once I'm positive that my web server will serve as a reliable DNS server as well, I should be able to switch IPv6 DNS onto the Web server, and it will allow me to score 10/10 despite not having dual stack connectivity.

For those who don't have IPv6 support in their router, the only thing you really need is UPnP enabled (if you don't wish to port forward manually), and a firewall that won't mind the 6to4 packets (which is really just UDP data carrying TCP data). For Windows, there's lenty of guides out there as to how to get it working. For Linux, often times simply opening up a root shell and typing in "apt-get install miredo" will give you the ability to browse IPv6 websites without the annoying IP-only limitation I outlined above.

[#9]

It turns out that for at least us residential Mac users, a test-ipv6.com score of 10/10-0/10 is the best we can currently get without involving third-party assistance from the likes of Tunnelbroker.com or Miredo-OSX ( www.deepdarc.com/miredo-osx ).

Firstly, most existing Verizon residential internet gateway boxes neither understand IPv6 addresses nor provide any tunneling protocols, so setting a Mac's Network System Preferences to Configure IPv6 Automatically has no effect.

Secondly, most current Verizon residential internet service is Network Address Translated (NAT), so having (or creating) a 6to4 Service in a Mac's Network System Preferences has no effect either (6to4 is a tunneling protocol Mac includes which is incompatible with NAT).

Tunnelbroker.com is reportedly the way to go for residential Mac users needing IPv6 today.  It is a free service, well-supported and robust, but requires registration and configuration.  I imagine it might yield a 10/10-10/10 score, but I did not try it.

Miredo-OSX is an installer, control panel, and binary of Miredo, a software implementation of Teredo tunneling for UNIX.  It is highly experimental, unsupported, insecure, and inappropriate for most users and uses, but I ran it and achieved a 7/10-7/10 (test-ipv6 rightly punishes using an IPv6 tunnel when an IPv4 path is available) with no other action on my part.

But, I'm still hoping Verizon's plan involves swapping out the Actiontec MI424WR for something supporting both IPv6 and 5 GHz WiFi....

[#10]

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Bill_Kula wrote:

One obvious question: What ever happened to IPv5 and why didn’t it get its own day? 

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Here are some more obvious question(s):

#1 When is the cutoff date for switching ?

#2 Will I have to replace my hardware ?

#3 Will I have to replace my OS ?

#4 What are Verizon's deployment plans for IPv6 ?

#5 What is Verizon doing to prepare for IPv6 ?

#6 Why can’t IPv4 just be expanded ?

#7 Will this cost us extra money per month ?

#8 Where are your IPv6 aware DNS Server(s) ?

[#11]

dslr595148,

Regarding hardware and OS, those questions need to be asked of your computer maker and OS developer.

As for Verizon, we're moving ahead with conversion to IPv6 and are already marketing IPv6 capable smartphones.  We continue to test systems and networks so that we are ready when the shift to IPv6 takes place.  Also, it's important to note that conversion will likely involve a dual-stack technology that will continue to allow IPv4 access at the same time as IPv6. The transition should be transparent to our broadband customers if they have IPv6 capable devices. 

Bill

[#12]

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Regarding hardware and OS, those questions need to be asked of your computer maker and OS developer.

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I don't diagree with what you said but most of the questions that I asked, the answers were found at

http://test-ipv6.com/faq_whyipv6.html

[#13]

I just called the FIOS Internet technical support and I am told that Verizon currently does NOT have any wireless router that support ipv6.   He went on to say that he has not seen any technical bulletin regarding the availability of a new wireless router that will support ipv6, so he didn't think that ipv6 will be available within the next 3 months.    

My laptop runs Windows 7 Home Premium with both ipv4 and ipv6 protocols turned on.   Whenever I bring my laptop to coffee shops, the wireless connection works just fine, but as soon as I bring it home, it does not work.  I called Microsoft technical support and he stated that the problem is with the Verizon Wireless Router which does not support ipv6.    Microsoft did give the following solution:

Method 1: 

Disable the IP Helper service:

1. Hold the Windows key and type R, enter "services.msc" (without the quotes) and press Enter
2. Scroll down to the IP Helper service, right click on it and select Properties
3. In the dropdown box that says "Automatic" or "Manual", set it to Disabled and then click on "Apply"
4. Then click on "Stop" to stop the service from running in the current session
5. Click OK to exit the dialog

Method 2: 

You may also disable Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) components and check if that fixes the issue.

Refer the link below and follow the steps mentioned in the KB article to disable IPv6:

How to disable certain Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) components in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929852 

Bottom line, this article about June 8th being the world ipv6 day does NOT apply if you have Verizon FIOS Internet provider..... sad but true !!!

[#14]

It has been pointed out IPv6 cannot really go anywhere until ISPs are providing their subscribers with IPv6 addresses.  Until then, it is hard to get too concerned about any threats to switch off IPv4 routing.  There are just so many questions about the whole situation still unanswered.

How old is stable IPv6 already—at least a decade, right?  Why is the Federal government supposedly pushing everybody to support IPv6 (but not really)?  Could it be that IPv6 is too secure or otherwise better than IPv4?  Why are so many ISPs still dragging their feet?  Is revenue from customers the major consideration?  How does IPv6 affect FCC tarrifs?  Are other countries equally sytmied?

I just don't get it.  Still.

[#15]

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It has been pointed out IPv6 cannot really go anywhere until ISPs are providing their subscribers with IPv6 addresses.

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For more info from Verizon about what Veriozn is doing, I point you to

http://www22.verizon.com/Support/Residential/Internet/HighSpeed/General+Support/Top+Questions/Questi...

[#16]

Also, since you asked I point you to

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/06/04/ipv6-the-time-to-consider-making-the-switch-is-now...

[#17]

I think I am seeing dual stack issues on networks ever since IPv6 went live. I think Microsoft sets IPv6 as priority does it not? I wonder how many routing tables are confused as hell. Even though there should be a stack for this and a stack for that. Which deck of cards are you playing with. I believe we are way behind on this one.