7 ms·

Tell HN: Sprint no longer assigning IPv4 addresses

88 points by MaupitiBlue 9y ago

After a few days of seemingly bizarre network errors from some, but not all, apps, I realized my phone wasn't getting an ipv4 address. After three calls with poor tech support bodies who didn't know what an ip address is, I tried Sprint's chat support. I was surprised when they promptly told me that all internet data is now ipv6. However, they said they could do a workaround for me. Moral, ipv6 is coming. Google says it is at 18% worldwide, and 34% in the US. https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

wmf 9y ago
T-Mobile also went more or less IPv6-only a few years ago.
russellbeattie 9y ago
Interesting... What were the errors and what was the workaround? Do they have some sort of 6to4 router that wasn't working?
- andrewf 9y ago
  That'd be an interesting take on Carrier-grade NAT. The approach I'm familiar gives phones a non-routable IPv4 address to get to the carrier's NAT gateway, but I can imagine shenanigans with some combination of 6to4, phone settings and/or DNS. Anyone seen such a setup in the wild? I'm interested in the errors OP saw.. was it just niche non-HTTP(S) access which broke, or all websites without an AAAA record?
  - zokier 9y ago
    Have you seen 464XLAT?
- cesarb 9y ago
  If the errors were "from some, but not all, apps", my first guess would be that these particular apps either don't understand IPv6 addresses, or ask the DNS only for IPv4 addresses. Both causes would stop NAT64/DNS64 or similar from working. The other apps which kept working probably can use IPv6 just fine, even if their servers are IPv4-only. The "workaround for him" was probably adding him back to the CGNAT, so that the outdated apps could see and use an IPv4 address. That kind of workaround won't be there forever; if they're starting to move phones to IPv6-only (with NAT64/DNS64 or similar), they are probably planning to turn off the CGNAT sooner or later.
gsich 9y ago
If they sell you an "internet access", tell them that without a global reachable IPv4 (and IPv6) it's not an internet access. Then go to another provider.
- jdamon96 9y ago
  I'm a bit of a rookie when it comes to understanding differences between IPv4 and IPv6.. can you explain to me what you mean by this comment?
  - nathanaldensr 9y ago
    The difference is it's a totally different protocol. I'd be willing to guess that most servers on the internet only listen on the IPv4 protocol, which means, effectively, those servers are unavailable to you.
    - jandrese 9y ago
      If they went IPv6 only and didn't implement NAT64 at the same time, then someone is going to be fired--probably the CEO. Mobile users won't notice because their IPv4 addresses were NATted anyway, and the phone stacks make it harder for app developers to screw up the v6 support. The v6 switchover should be mostly invisible to the users.
      - stevenAthompson 9y ago
        Very true. Verizon has been 6 only for ages, but they use NAT64 so most non-nerds never noticed. I believe that at the time of the rollout they were the largest IP6 network on the planet. They may still be. It works because smartphone users don't have the same needs as home and business users. There aren't a ton of smartphone users demanding reachable IPv4 addresses in the first place, and the ones who might want them are probably smart enough to figure out how to use IPv6 instead.
        jandrese 9y ago
Aloha 9y ago
I think your sprint rep sold you a line of bullshit - there was likely a configuration issue with your account. Sprint must have rolled out IPv6 in the last six months or so.
subway 9y ago
AFAIK, Sprint offers 464XLAT on their IPv6 network, the same as T-Mobile. This uses a CLAT on your side to translate IPv4 to IPv6, then a PLAT on the Sprint side to translate back from IPv6 to IPv4. Allowing IPv4-only apps to work over the carrier's NAT64/DNS64. It sounds like you might have a broken CLAT implementation.
- puzzle 9y ago
  Yes, T-Mobile has been doing it for four years now. See slides here: https://conference.apnic.net/data/37/464xlat-apricot-2014_1393236641.pdf https://conference.apnic.net/data/37/464xlat-apricot-2014_13...
runjake 9y ago
IPv6 is already here and has been for years. The vast majority of my org's Internet traffic is IPv6. Some of you are just straggling.
- justincormack 9y ago
  Thats very different to ipv6 only with some sort if 6to4. Many common things (github etc) still fail to have ipv6 addresses so you are reduced to some pseudo natv6 that works poorly.
edwhitesell 9y ago
I'm IPv4 only at the moment, though I have sometimes seen both in various markets across the US.
youseecomrade 9y ago
ipv6 has any impact on privacy? (VPNs aside) my ipv4 changes every 24 hours, what if my ISP tries to pin a fixed ipv6 on me since they are "unlimited"? I hope I can also stay under NAT, I don't understand the concept perfectly but it's nice to have this extra indirect protection at home
- mgbmtl 9y ago
  There are plenty of other ways to track you. This is a really old argument (and is off-topic).
  - dx034 9y ago
    But you can prevent all other ways. IP tracking doesn't work well currently, the number of users sharing one IP can be significant. Other means of tracking can be disabled with addins and by using common configurations (for browser fingerprints). Once you start assigning one static ip per device, there's nothing a user can do to prevent being tracked constantly.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
  FYI you don't need NAT if you have a firewall, since the firewall can provide identical protection while being harder to bypass. Pretty much every home router can act as a firewall, but most won't by default.
  - voltagex_ 9y ago
    A $300 "home" router I bought couldn't firewall IPv6 at all - people are going to get caught out by crap products.
cypherpunks01 9y ago
All my Verizon android phones have been on ipv6 addresses for years, I think? What is the status of other major carriers?
chiph 9y ago
Until recently, I was on Spectrum (née Time-Warner) service in Austin. I was running IPv6 on my gaming machine, and for general web browsing it was fine. But I was seeing ping times of over 2000 ms for World of Warcraft and it made the game unplayable. I switched back to IPv4 and got pings in the 50-70 ms range. This showed me that IPv6 is still in the "try it and see" stage and your latency will vary by application.
Shelnutt2 9y ago
Sprint has been IPV6 enable for several years. Some devices are/were duel stack, some devices IPv6 only with the 464XLAT. You can see the adoption of ipv6 enabled devices growing: http://www.worldipv6launch.org/apps/ipv6week/measurement/images/graphs/SprintWireless.png http://www.worldipv6launch.org/apps/ipv6week/measurement/ima... All major providers ipv6 percentage can be see at http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/ http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/
api 9y ago
Good. Kill it.
dx034 9y ago
Does anyone know why ipv6 usage is significantly higher on Saturdays than other days for Google? They record a difference of ~3% which is a lot of traffic. Is this due to different browsing patterns of countries with high adoption vs. low adoption? https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html
- spystath 9y ago
  I would guess residential connections are more likely to be IPv6 enabled. Corporate networks move slowly. In our organisation they actually removed IPv6, go figure!

88 points by MaupitiBlue 9y ago

wmf 9y ago

T-Mobile also went more or less IPv6-only a few years ago.

russellbeattie 9y ago

Interesting... What were the errors and what was the workaround? Do they have some sort of 6to4 router that wasn't working?

andrewf 9y ago
That'd be an interesting take on Carrier-grade NAT. The approach I'm familiar gives phones a non-routable IPv4 address to get to the carrier's NAT gateway, but I can imagine shenanigans with some combination of 6to4, phone settings and/or DNS. Anyone seen such a setup in the wild? I'm interested in the errors OP saw.. was it just niche non-HTTP(S) access which broke, or all websites without an AAAA record?
- zokier 9y ago
  Have you seen 464XLAT?
cesarb 9y ago
If the errors were "from some, but not all, apps", my first guess would be that these particular apps either don't understand IPv6 addresses, or ask the DNS only for IPv4 addresses. Both causes would stop NAT64/DNS64 or similar from working. The other apps which kept working probably can use IPv6 just fine, even if their servers are IPv4-only. The "workaround for him" was probably adding him back to the CGNAT, so that the outdated apps could see and use an IPv4 address. That kind of workaround won't be there forever; if they're starting to move phones to IPv6-only (with NAT64/DNS64 or similar), they are probably planning to turn off the CGNAT sooner or later.

gsich 9y ago

If they sell you an "internet access", tell them that without a global reachable IPv4 (and IPv6) it's not an internet access. Then go to another provider.

jdamon96 9y ago
I'm a bit of a rookie when it comes to understanding differences between IPv4 and IPv6.. can you explain to me what you mean by this comment?
- nathanaldensr 9y ago
  The difference is it's a totally different protocol. I'd be willing to guess that most servers on the internet only listen on the IPv4 protocol, which means, effectively, those servers are unavailable to you.
  - jandrese 9y ago
    If they went IPv6 only and didn't implement NAT64 at the same time, then someone is going to be fired--probably the CEO. Mobile users won't notice because their IPv4 addresses were NATted anyway, and the phone stacks make it harder for app developers to screw up the v6 support. The v6 switchover should be mostly invisible to the users.
    - stevenAthompson 9y ago
      Very true. Verizon has been 6 only for ages, but they use NAT64 so most non-nerds never noticed. I believe that at the time of the rollout they were the largest IP6 network on the planet. They may still be. It works because smartphone users don't have the same needs as home and business users. There aren't a ton of smartphone users demanding reachable IPv4 addresses in the first place, and the ones who might want them are probably smart enough to figure out how to use IPv6 instead.
      - jandrese 9y ago

Aloha 9y ago

I think your sprint rep sold you a line of bullshit - there was likely a configuration issue with your account. Sprint must have rolled out IPv6 in the last six months or so.

subway 9y ago

AFAIK, Sprint offers 464XLAT on their IPv6 network, the same as T-Mobile. This uses a CLAT on your side to translate IPv4 to IPv6, then a PLAT on the Sprint side to translate back from IPv6 to IPv4. Allowing IPv4-only apps to work over the carrier's NAT64/DNS64. It sounds like you might have a broken CLAT implementation.

puzzle 9y ago
Yes, T-Mobile has been doing it for four years now. See slides here: https://conference.apnic.net/data/37/464xlat-apricot-2014_1393236641.pdf https://conference.apnic.net/data/37/464xlat-apricot-2014_13...

runjake 9y ago

IPv6 is already here and has been for years. The vast majority of my org's Internet traffic is IPv6. Some of you are just straggling.

justincormack 9y ago
Thats very different to ipv6 only with some sort if 6to4. Many common things (github etc) still fail to have ipv6 addresses so you are reduced to some pseudo natv6 that works poorly.

edwhitesell 9y ago

I'm IPv4 only at the moment, though I have sometimes seen both in various markets across the US.

youseecomrade 9y ago

ipv6 has any impact on privacy? (VPNs aside) my ipv4 changes every 24 hours, what if my ISP tries to pin a fixed ipv6 on me since they are "unlimited"? I hope I can also stay under NAT, I don't understand the concept perfectly but it's nice to have this extra indirect protection at home

mgbmtl 9y ago
There are plenty of other ways to track you. This is a really old argument (and is off-topic).
- dx034 9y ago
  But you can prevent all other ways. IP tracking doesn't work well currently, the number of users sharing one IP can be significant. Other means of tracking can be disabled with addins and by using common configurations (for browser fingerprints). Once you start assigning one static ip per device, there's nothing a user can do to prevent being tracked constantly.
SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
FYI you don't need NAT if you have a firewall, since the firewall can provide identical protection while being harder to bypass. Pretty much every home router can act as a firewall, but most won't by default.
- voltagex_ 9y ago
  A $300 "home" router I bought couldn't firewall IPv6 at all - people are going to get caught out by crap products.

cypherpunks01 9y ago

All my Verizon android phones have been on ipv6 addresses for years, I think? What is the status of other major carriers?

chiph 9y ago

Until recently, I was on Spectrum (née Time-Warner) service in Austin. I was running IPv6 on my gaming machine, and for general web browsing it was fine. But I was seeing ping times of over 2000 ms for World of Warcraft and it made the game unplayable. I switched back to IPv4 and got pings in the 50-70 ms range. This showed me that IPv6 is still in the "try it and see" stage and your latency will vary by application.

Shelnutt2 9y ago

Sprint has been IPV6 enable for several years. Some devices are/were duel stack, some devices IPv6 only with the 464XLAT. You can see the adoption of ipv6 enabled devices growing: http://www.worldipv6launch.org/apps/ipv6week/measurement/images/graphs/SprintWireless.png http://www.worldipv6launch.org/apps/ipv6week/measurement/ima... All major providers ipv6 percentage can be see at http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/ http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/

api 9y ago

Good. Kill it.

dx034 9y ago

Does anyone know why ipv6 usage is significantly higher on Saturdays than other days for Google? They record a difference of ~3% which is a lot of traffic. Is this due to different browsing patterns of countries with high adoption vs. low adoption? https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

spystath 9y ago
I would guess residential connections are more likely to be IPv6 enabled. Corporate networks move slowly. In our organisation they actually removed IPv6, go figure!