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jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

2 recommendations

jlivingood

Premium Member

[IPv6] Deployment of IPv6 Begins

I am happy to announce that we’ve achieved another critical milestone in our transition to IPv6 – we’ve started the pilot market deployment of IPv6 to customers in selected markets! The first area is Pleasanton, CA. We will soon cover all of our earlier IPv6 trial areas as well.

This first phase will support certain types of directly connected CPE, where a single computer is connected directly to a cable modem. This will depend upon the cable modem (a subset of DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems, which will expand over time) and will also depend upon the operating system (only Windows 7, Windows Vista, Mac OS X 10.7 / Lion), which must support stateful DHCPv6.

While this may seem like a small step, our approach is to progressively widen our deployment over time. Later phases will support home gateway devices (Apple, D-Link, Netgear, etc.). For directly connected CPE, we will allocate an individual IPv6 address (/128), since we know that only a single device is connecting, with no additional need to subnet.

The cable devices that will initially support IPv6 are listed at »mydeviceinfo.comcast.net ··· sc=84and are shown with a checkmark in the IPv6 column (click the top of the column to sort by that variable). This list will expand in the coming weeks and months as we complete testing of other devices.

It is also important to note that we are deploying native dual stack, which means a customer gets both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses. That means we are not using tunneling technology or large scale Network Address Translation (NAT). In contrast to tunneling and large scale NAT, native dual stack avoids breaking or slowing applications and maintains a better and faster broadband Internet experience.

For more information, check out these two blog posts at »blog.comcast.com/2011/11 ··· ent.html and »blog.comcast.com/2011/11 ··· ogy.html, and keep an eye on our IPv6 Information Center at »www.comcast6.net.

somms
join:2003-07-28
Centerville, UT

somms

Member

According to the official supported deveice link, I would have to now downgrade my Motorola SB6121 to the older/obsolete SB6120 in order to participate!
jus10
join:2009-08-04
Gainesville, VA

1 recommendation

jus10 to jlivingood

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to jlivingood
Is there anyway to get a list of "earlier IPv6" trial areas?

I take it there is also a difference between "will support" and "works". While the DS3 modem would seem to be needed (have that), there are plenty of things which support DHCPv6 which aren't on that list. My DHCPv6-foo is rather weak. I would assume it still gives out a /64 which in turn could be advertised via ravd to the rest of my lan (thus they all get v6 address)? Or does DHCPv6 authoritatively control everything in the /64 and thus I'd only have 1 ipv6 address? That would be a regression over what I presently have where all of my lan is on ipv6. However I don't think I'm in a trial area so I guess I have some time.

jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

jlivingood to somms

Premium Member

to somms
said by somms:

According to the official supported deveice link, I would have to now downgrade my Motorola SB6121 to the older/obsolete SB6120 in order to participate!

As I noted above, "This list will expand in the coming weeks and months as we complete testing of other devices."

So no need to downgrade. We'll add more devices soon.
jlivingood

1 recommendation

jlivingood to jus10

Premium Member

to jus10
said by jus10:

Is there anyway to get a list of "earlier IPv6" trial areas?

Yes, you can browse through older posts @ »www.comcast6.net. We have mentioned previously San Francisco, CA, Philadelphia, PA, Miramar, FL, Chicago, IL, and Denver, CO. We are, however, admittedly vague on where in each of those areas, for operational reasons.

That being said - it never hurts to contact your local market to tell them you really want IPv6.
said by jus10:

I take it there is also a difference between "will support" and "works". While the DS3 modem would seem to be needed (have that), there are plenty of things which support DHCPv6 which aren't on that list.

Yes, there sure is. First, we have found that many devices that say they support IPv6 don't work the way they should. So we do a bunch of testing to ensure everything works as expected before we enable a device. As you might imagine, we have quite a queue of devices to test. Our next phase is home gateway devices.

somms
join:2003-07-28
Centerville, UT

somms to jlivingood

Member

to jlivingood
said by jlivingood:

said by somms:

According to the official supported deveice link, I would have to now downgrade my Motorola SB6121 to the older/obsolete SB6120 in order to participate!

As I noted above, "This list will expand in the coming weeks and months as we complete testing of other devices."

So no need to downgrade. We'll add more devices soon.

Thanks for confirming SB6121 IPv6 support will be included eventually...already have a E4200 IPv6 ready wireless router parked behind my SB6121 whenever Comcast decides to throw the switch!
jus10
join:2009-08-04
Gainesville, VA

jus10 to jlivingood

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to jlivingood
Understandable. I don't think my Airport Extreme is listed as supporting DHCPv6 at all so I won't be a guinea pig this time around.

I'll see if I can pester my local market into rolling out ipv6. I'm in the greater DC area but I'm not sure if I'm really in that "market". If DC were Philly, I live in the equivalent of Berks County.

Progress is exciting!

jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

jlivingood

Premium Member

said by jus10:

Understandable. I don't think my Airport Extreme is listed as supporting DHCPv6 at all so I won't be a guinea pig this time around.

The Apple Airport Extreme is actually pretty good - we have used it in our IPv6 trials. It can receive IPv6 on the WAN interface, like a /64, which is what you will want. (As noted - a subsequent phase later this year.)
said by jus10:

I'll see if I can pester my local market into rolling out ipv6. I'm in the greater DC area but I'm not sure if I'm really in that "market". If DC were Philly, I live in the equivalent of Berks County.

Hey now - careful! I'm from Berks County originally. But, yeah, I know what you mean.

ropeguru
Premium Member
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA

ropeguru to jlivingood

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to jlivingood
Since the thread from Steve got whacked, I will post my comment from there, here:

Still no love for business customers and the SMC's and not on the IPv6 list.

jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

jlivingood

Premium Member

said by ropeguru:

Still no love for business customers and the SMC's and not on the IPv6 list.

One surefire way to express your desire for IPv6 on Business Class is to contact their sales team and express your interest...

JL
WB3FFV
join:2001-12-11
Abingdon, MD

WB3FFV

Member

Well be it good, or bad, I have many times mentioned to the Business side, that I wanted IPv6, and I can't speak for the rest of the country, but at least here in the Baltimore, MD area, they are clooless, and don't even know what I am talking about.

I guess on the bright side, I am running native dual stack in a datacenter, so just made my own tunnel, so I now have dual-stack running here at home over my Comcast service. Still it would be far nicer if I didn't have to loop through my datacenter to have it..

ropeguru
Premium Member
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA

ropeguru to jlivingood

Premium Member

to jlivingood
said by jlivingood:

said by ropeguru:

Still no love for business customers and the SMC's and not on the IPv6 list.

One surefire way to express your desire for IPv6 on Business Class is to contact their sales team and express your interest...

JL

Good thought. If my rep is not as clueless as others have posted about theirs, I will use this as a little leverage. My 2 year contract is up next month and I need to decide what I am going to do.
csnyder3
join:2007-09-10
Grand Rapids, MI

csnyder3 to jlivingood

Member

to jlivingood
Jason,

Thanks for all of your work on this effort, especially for your efforts to be so accessible to the community; my two-years-ago-self would be astonished to hear me say this, but I'm happy to be a Comcast customer (at least for Internet service - no comment on TV or phone).

I'm hoping that you'll switch on IPv6 in my market (Grand Rapids, MI) soon. We just got D3 recently, so I'm not sure how that factors in to our timetable. In the meantime, I'll replace my five-year-old modem at home and start pestering the workplace CS reps about upgrading my office to a D3 gateway.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix to jus10

Premium Member

to jus10
said by jus10:

Understandable. I don't think my Airport Extreme is listed as supporting DHCPv6 at all so I won't be a guinea pig this time around.

Progress is exciting!

Why would you want to USE DHCP with IPv6?
use a proper /64 on all network segments

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude

Premium Member

said by DarkLogix See Profile
Why would you want to USE DHCP with IPv6?
use a proper /64 on all network segments

1. Push DNS servers (can be done with SLAAC but RDNSS is nasty) and other information such as network time servers.
2. Push prefix information to the client if there is a routed assignment.
3. IPAM management. SLAAC is great for small networks but you might want to integrate your addressing management into whatever software you are using for IPv4. Think of issues such as support where a support agent can retrieve both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses or routed addresses for a client.

jjmb
join:2009-12-01
USA

1 recommendation

jjmb to DarkLogix

Member

to DarkLogix
We mentioned the use of the dual band Airport Extremes as part of our trials some time ago. It works quite well! It supports stateful DHCPv6 on the WAN interface and SLAAC only the LAN side, which is perfectly acceptable. Of course this assumes no shorter than a /64 IPv6 prefix length on the LAN side of the router.

FWIW - DHCPv6 does have it usefulness and value.

John

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

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Mike Wolf to jlivingood

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to jlivingood
ok so what about the areas who have yet to see the trials? Are those areas just going to switch completely over overnight or is it too going to be a long transitional period? Also nice to see you again J.
jus10
join:2009-08-04
Gainesville, VA

jus10 to jjmb

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Ah cool. So as I understand it, whenever Comcast moves to the next phase and starts rolling out /64s, I can set the AEBS to state-fully request the /64 and then it can statelessly give out addresses on the LAN. That's actually about perfect .

I have no problems with DHCPv6. I think there was some confusion on my earlier posts. As I understand it, you guys are using DHCPv6 so it doesn't matter if I do or not. The part I was confused on was whether DHCPv6 was state-full the whole way down (that is it issues v6 to hosts inside of my lan; behind the router) or if the router acted as a middle-man and just SLAAC'ed out the /64. I'm guessing from how you described the AEBS it works like the latter.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

2 edits

Mike Wolf to somms

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to somms
said by somms:

According to the official supported deveice link, I would have to now downgrade my Motorola SB6121 to the older/obsolete SB6120 in order to participate!

I got one of each and they really use the same firmware so I think the lack of a checkmark is a simple formality and nothing to worry about. Plus I got the same E4200 router, Just be sure to update the firmware to 1.0.03 since it includes native IPv6 support
Mike Wolf

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Mike Wolf to jlivingood

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to jlivingood
said by jlivingood:

That being said - it never hurts to contact your local market to tell them you really want IPv6.

Explain to me how we "contact our local market" since there is no phone number we can call to our service centers, the call centers don't know jack squat (and frankly don't care) about IPv6 or how to get in touch with the engineers to give the message, and calling corporate doesn't really get anyone anywhere unless your dealing with ComcastSteve. Aren't you the one who's in charge of all of this and makes the decisions as to wherer to go next?

ctgreybeard
Old dogs can learn new tricks
Premium Member
join:2001-11-13
Bethel, CT

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ctgreybeard to Mike Wolf

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to Mike Wolf
said by Mike Wolf:

Plus I got the same E4200 router, Just be sure to update the firmware to 1.0.03 since it includes native IPv6 support

I just updated my brand new E3200 to the newest release (1.0.02 (build 9)) and it also includes IPV6 native support. The release notes state: "This build is certified with the IPv6 Ready Logo Phase-2 (Gold)." Hopefully that's a good thing.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

Member

hey greybeard long time no see!! man its good to see your posts again. I've been so busy on the tv side of things I completely forgot about this side. Anyway the update for my E4200 said the same thing about phase 2 gold but it still doesn't have 6to4 configuration support as an option.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

1 recommendation

whfsdude

Premium Member

I'd consider the lack of 6to4 on the E4200 a good thing. It's being deprecated and has caused some serious brokenness on the IPv6 internet.

While you wait for native v6, you're much better off getting a static tunnel from HE or SixXs (AYIYA works from behind NAT), or even using Teredo.
Expand your moderator at work

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf to whfsdude

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to whfsdude

Re: [IPv6] Deployment of IPv6 Begins

but I for some reasn can't figure out how to make the HE and SixXs stuff work lol. I'm used to the 6RD settings where I can enter them into the router configuration page.
jus10
join:2009-08-04
Gainesville, VA

jus10 to whfsdude

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to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:

I'd consider the lack of 6to4 on the E4200 a good thing. It's being deprecated and has caused some serious brokenness on the IPv6 internet..

Umm? 6to4 comes higher up in the ipv6 prioritization than Teredo. Most OS's will prefer it to Teredo (and many OS's don't even support Teredo without additional software, namely Miredo). 6to4 works fine as long as the tunneling is working which is true of Teredo or a static tunnel. As to working behind NAT, that shouldn't matter if he's willing to run some ipv6 software on the router. My router does the 6to4 work and it advertises ipv6 addresses to my machines on the LAN. They don't need to deal with NAT'ed ipv6 because the ipv6 isn't behind any NAT. If my router didn't support ipv6 then yes I'd agree that Teredo or static tunnels might be a better option. And I'd go with static tunnels being preferable to 6to4 but not to Teredo.

And to my knowledge Comcast doesn't run a Teredo exchange while they do run 6to4 exchanges. So performance should be better with 6to4 over Teredo.
mahohmei1
join:2008-10-29

mahohmei1 to jlivingood

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I'm pretty new to IPv6, but I guess my main question is how dual-stack will play out in my household on a few devices that, from what I've been reading up on, aren't exactly IPv6-ready:

- Linksys WRT54G v2. I can install OpenWRT, and if this fails or bricks, I'll go buy an E4200.

- Windows XP Professional SP3.

- Tivo Series2 with USB-Ethernet dongle. Uses the Internet, but I also access the TiVo from the LAN to download TV shows to my computer.

- Nintendo Wii with USB-Ethernet dongle. Uses the Internet.

- EpsonNet parallel print server. Only used within the LAN.
csnyder3
join:2007-09-10
Grand Rapids, MI

1 recommendation

csnyder3

Member

said by mahohmei1:

- Linksys WRT54G v2. I can install OpenWRT, and if this fails or bricks, I'll go buy an E4200.

I'm using DD-WRT on my Linksys router, and it supports IPv6 (I've been using 6to4 on Comcast for the past few months). Not sure how OpenWRT IPv6 support is.
said by mahohmei1:

- Windows XP Professional SP3.

Should work fine - Google if you can't figure out how to get it working.
said by mahohmei1:

- Tivo Series2 with USB-Ethernet dongle. Uses the Internet, but I also access the TiVo from the LAN to download TV shows to my computer.

- Nintendo Wii with USB-Ethernet dongle. Uses the Internet.

- EpsonNet parallel print server. Only used within the LAN.

Don't worry about these devices. They'll be able to cruise along just fine on the existing IPv4 network. By the time v4 is deprecated (nobody is seriously talking about timetables for this yet - probably decades), this equipment will be museum-eligible.

Dual-stack allows existing IPv4 devices to function just as they always have: they'll ignore the IPv6 packets that they don't understand. To enable IPv6 on your network, the only things you need to worry about are the core networking equipment - probably just the cable modem and router (network switches will work fine - they work at a lower layer than IP).
mahohmei1
join:2008-10-29

1 recommendation

mahohmei1

Member

Technically, the TiVo, Wii, and EpsonNet could have their firmware/software upgraded to support IPv6. TiVo seems to do an excellent job continuing to support old devices, and I could imagine Nintendo being interested in making the Wii work with IPv6.

Epson, OTOH, seems to have abandoned the EpsonNet, however, looking at the printer marketplace, I am fairly confident that our next home printer will have on-board Ethernet--currently looking at the HP LaserJet CP1025nw.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
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join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix to jjmb

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to jjmb
Currently I have a 6over4 tunnel via hurricane electric with a /48 which I then have split into multiple /64's for my vlan's, so will I be able to get a /48 from comcast?