3 ms·

Can we have source to go with the IPv6 is “cheaper and faster” claim? Like actual facts stated in dollars and milliseconds. I’m also going to humor you on the

Can we have source to go with the IPv6 is “cheaper and faster” claim? Like actual facts stated in dollars and milliseconds. I’m also going to humor you on the IPv6-only thing. Can you actually point to a single ISP that is even considering IPv6-only?

tialaramex 5y ago
What did we read right here on HN recently about IP blocks changing hands for about $40 per address? IPv6 addresses are approximately 100% cheaper than that. But it doesn't stop there, you also no longer need subnet planning -- where under IPv4 it's very important whether this new subnet is 60 machines or 64 machines, in IPv6 you don't care and so nobody needs to manage that. Which translates to lower costs in your network team. Negligible when your "network team" is just the CTO doing a Google search, but significant at scale. Your route costs fall too. Because of exhaustion (and because years ago nobody had any idea what they were doing, not having had an Internet before) IPv4 is now badly fragmented, which means a trivial route ("All the East Coast stuff") may become six or sixteen or sixty separate address blocks, but IPv6 blocks were deliberately assigned so as to reduce fragmentation, chances are "All the East Coast stuff" is one or two blocks. As to speed, Facebook reports IPv6 is about 10% faster for them. They did exactly what I described, they're v6-only internally and have translation at the edge for "legacy" IPv4 clients.
- 2fastpost 5y ago
  > What did we read right here on HN recently about IP blocks changing hands for about $40 per address? IPv6 addresses are approximately 100% cheaper than that. This is just silly. If you are an ISP then you already have an IPv4 allocation. If you don’t then you join the waiting list and/or apply for a /24. Once you have your allocation, RIR fees are the same regardless of IPv4 or IPv6 allocations. > But it doesn't stop there, you also no longer need subnet planning -- where under IPv4 it's very important whether this new subnet is 60 machines or 64 machines, in IPv6 you don't care and so nobody needs to manage that. Which translates to lower costs in your network team. Negligible when your "network team" is just the CTO doing a Google search, but significant at scale. If you believe this is in any way meaningful then I have a bridge to sell you. > Your route costs fall too. Because of exhaustion (and because years ago nobody had any idea what they were doing, not having had an Internet before) IPv4 is now badly fragmented, which means a trivial route ("All the East Coast stuff") may become six or sixteen or sixty separate address blocks, but IPv6 blocks were deliberately assigned so as to reduce fragmentation, chances are "All the East Coast stuff" is one or two blocks. You can’t buy smaller routers just because you deploy IPv6, so I have no idea what cost saving there are to be had here. > As to speed, Facebook reports IPv6 is about 10% faster for them. I fail to see how this is universally applicable to all ISPs. > They did exactly what I described, they're v6-only internally and have translation at the edge for "legacy" IPv4 clients. Having an IPv6 core is not the same thing as being IPv6-only. Speaking of IPv6-only, you have yet to name even a single ISP that is even considering going IPv6-only. Cat got your tongue?
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    I think the main thrust of your objection is that you believe I was claiming this makes sense for any ISP when I was instead saying it makes sense for lots of companies providing services on the Internet Still, while we're here: > This is just silly. If you are an ISP then you already have an IPv4 allocation. Due to exhaustion in fact you can't get new allocations in IPv4 in most of the developed world. If you want to expand, you're going to need to buy addresses on the open market for that sort of $40 price we talked about. > ... Once you have your allocation, RIR fees are the same regardless of IPv4 or IPv6 allocations. Nope. Let's take ARIN, suppose you're a large international company, hundreds of local corporate networks. With IPv4 this is quite a struggle, maybe you can get away with a /17 for which ARIN will charge you $4000 per year. But with IPv6 this is easy, you'll qualify for their "3X-small" category with a /40 at only $250 per year, even if you choose a relatively wasteful address layout. It gets worse! Unless you already had that /17 from years ago, chances are you had to cobble the addresses together from several distinct allocations. ARIN charges $150 per block aggregated in this way, if you need a dozen blocks that's $1800 extra because of the fragmentation. In contrast IPv6 isn't fragmented, it was deliberately allocated sparsely so it's easy to give you adjacent blocks to grow. Not that they'll need to when you're just an international company with a few hundred sub-networks, IPv6 is so wide.
    - ipv6_or_nat 5y ago
      Well, yeah, if you start by quoting a message explicitly making statements about ISPs and then opining on that, why act surprised that others think you are talking about ISPs? As to the RIR fee thing, yeah, you are right about the ARIN thing. It differs by RIR and region, tho. You are wrong about the allocation thing, tho. You can get new IPv4 allocations, even in ARINland, by joining the waitlist or to support a IPv6 deployment.
DanAtC 5y ago
RE: v6-only ISP, there's this crazy story that came up last IPv6 article: https://old.reddit.com/r/ipv6/comments/n5y5oo/update_on_not_being_able_to_access_older_websites/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ipv6/comments/n5y5oo/update_on_not_...
- 2fastpost 5y ago
  Most likely fake. Posted from a throwaway account with no posting history before or since. ISP not named, no details given, no proof.
kaliszad 5y ago
Apple claimed [0] "If you look at the last month of connections made worldwide by Apple devices, we see that IPv6 now accounts for 26% of all connections made. Twenty percent of the time, the connection could have used IPv6, but the server didn't have it enabled. And when IPv6 is in use, the median connection setup is 1.4 times faster than IPv4. This is primarily due to reduced NAT usage and improved routing." Also [1] "As of June 1, 2016, all apps submitted to the App Store must support IPv6-only networks." I guess, that is a good point for performance and revenue stream security. Of course, IPv6 has problems in some parts of the world. IPv6-only usually means, there is IPv4 on some central gateway but your clients don't get any IPv4 assigned. There is a number of really big networks doing just that e.g. most of the mobile operators in the USA. [0] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10111/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10111/ [1] https://developer.apple.com/support/ipv6/ https://developer.apple.com/support/ipv6/
- ipv6_or_nat 5y ago
  The Apple claim is so hand wavy as to be meaningless. Without any hard data and like-to-like comparisons, the most that can be said is that IPv4 and IPv6 have different routing policies and this may attribute the differences in latency. As such what and where you test will affect your results. That being said, Apple’s IPv6 policy is probably the best thing being done to encourage adoption. However, they are not adopting the policy due to performance reasons, but due to necessity given who their ultimate customers are (cell phone companies). IPv6-only as a term has been heavily abused. A truly IPv6-only network has no access to IPv4 resources. If it does, it isn’t really IPv6-only and relies upon IPv4 addresses and NAT to work.

tialaramex 5y ago

What did we read right here on HN recently about IP blocks changing hands for about $40 per address? IPv6 addresses are approximately 100% cheaper than that. But it doesn't stop there, you also no longer need subnet planning -- where under IPv4 it's very important whether this new subnet is 60 machines or 64 machines, in IPv6 you don't care and so nobody needs to manage that. Which translates to lower costs in your network team. Negligible when your "network team" is just the CTO doing a Google search, but significant at scale. Your route costs fall too. Because of exhaustion (and because years ago nobody had any idea what they were doing, not having had an Internet before) IPv4 is now badly fragmented, which means a trivial route ("All the East Coast stuff") may become six or sixteen or sixty separate address blocks, but IPv6 blocks were deliberately assigned so as to reduce fragmentation, chances are "All the East Coast stuff" is one or two blocks. As to speed, Facebook reports IPv6 is about 10% faster for them. They did exactly what I described, they're v6-only internally and have translation at the edge for "legacy" IPv4 clients.

2fastpost 5y ago
> What did we read right here on HN recently about IP blocks changing hands for about $40 per address? IPv6 addresses are approximately 100% cheaper than that. This is just silly. If you are an ISP then you already have an IPv4 allocation. If you don’t then you join the waiting list and/or apply for a /24. Once you have your allocation, RIR fees are the same regardless of IPv4 or IPv6 allocations. > But it doesn't stop there, you also no longer need subnet planning -- where under IPv4 it's very important whether this new subnet is 60 machines or 64 machines, in IPv6 you don't care and so nobody needs to manage that. Which translates to lower costs in your network team. Negligible when your "network team" is just the CTO doing a Google search, but significant at scale. If you believe this is in any way meaningful then I have a bridge to sell you. > Your route costs fall too. Because of exhaustion (and because years ago nobody had any idea what they were doing, not having had an Internet before) IPv4 is now badly fragmented, which means a trivial route ("All the East Coast stuff") may become six or sixteen or sixty separate address blocks, but IPv6 blocks were deliberately assigned so as to reduce fragmentation, chances are "All the East Coast stuff" is one or two blocks. You can’t buy smaller routers just because you deploy IPv6, so I have no idea what cost saving there are to be had here. > As to speed, Facebook reports IPv6 is about 10% faster for them. I fail to see how this is universally applicable to all ISPs. > They did exactly what I described, they're v6-only internally and have translation at the edge for "legacy" IPv4 clients. Having an IPv6 core is not the same thing as being IPv6-only. Speaking of IPv6-only, you have yet to name even a single ISP that is even considering going IPv6-only. Cat got your tongue?
- tialaramex 5y ago
  I think the main thrust of your objection is that you believe I was claiming this makes sense for any ISP when I was instead saying it makes sense for lots of companies providing services on the Internet Still, while we're here: > This is just silly. If you are an ISP then you already have an IPv4 allocation. Due to exhaustion in fact you can't get new allocations in IPv4 in most of the developed world. If you want to expand, you're going to need to buy addresses on the open market for that sort of $40 price we talked about. > ... Once you have your allocation, RIR fees are the same regardless of IPv4 or IPv6 allocations. Nope. Let's take ARIN, suppose you're a large international company, hundreds of local corporate networks. With IPv4 this is quite a struggle, maybe you can get away with a /17 for which ARIN will charge you $4000 per year. But with IPv6 this is easy, you'll qualify for their "3X-small" category with a /40 at only $250 per year, even if you choose a relatively wasteful address layout. It gets worse! Unless you already had that /17 from years ago, chances are you had to cobble the addresses together from several distinct allocations. ARIN charges $150 per block aggregated in this way, if you need a dozen blocks that's $1800 extra because of the fragmentation. In contrast IPv6 isn't fragmented, it was deliberately allocated sparsely so it's easy to give you adjacent blocks to grow. Not that they'll need to when you're just an international company with a few hundred sub-networks, IPv6 is so wide.
  - ipv6_or_nat 5y ago
    Well, yeah, if you start by quoting a message explicitly making statements about ISPs and then opining on that, why act surprised that others think you are talking about ISPs? As to the RIR fee thing, yeah, you are right about the ARIN thing. It differs by RIR and region, tho. You are wrong about the allocation thing, tho. You can get new IPv4 allocations, even in ARINland, by joining the waitlist or to support a IPv6 deployment.

DanAtC 5y ago

RE: v6-only ISP, there's this crazy story that came up last IPv6 article: https://old.reddit.com/r/ipv6/comments/n5y5oo/update_on_not_being_able_to_access_older_websites/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ipv6/comments/n5y5oo/update_on_not_...

2fastpost 5y ago
Most likely fake. Posted from a throwaway account with no posting history before or since. ISP not named, no details given, no proof.

kaliszad 5y ago

Apple claimed [0] "If you look at the last month of connections made worldwide by Apple devices, we see that IPv6 now accounts for 26% of all connections made. Twenty percent of the time, the connection could have used IPv6, but the server didn't have it enabled. And when IPv6 is in use, the median connection setup is 1.4 times faster than IPv4. This is primarily due to reduced NAT usage and improved routing." Also [1] "As of June 1, 2016, all apps submitted to the App Store must support IPv6-only networks." I guess, that is a good point for performance and revenue stream security. Of course, IPv6 has problems in some parts of the world. IPv6-only usually means, there is IPv4 on some central gateway but your clients don't get any IPv4 assigned. There is a number of really big networks doing just that e.g. most of the mobile operators in the USA. [0] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10111/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10111/ [1] https://developer.apple.com/support/ipv6/ https://developer.apple.com/support/ipv6/

ipv6_or_nat 5y ago
The Apple claim is so hand wavy as to be meaningless. Without any hard data and like-to-like comparisons, the most that can be said is that IPv4 and IPv6 have different routing policies and this may attribute the differences in latency. As such what and where you test will affect your results. That being said, Apple’s IPv6 policy is probably the best thing being done to encourage adoption. However, they are not adopting the policy due to performance reasons, but due to necessity given who their ultimate customers are (cell phone companies). IPv6-only as a term has been heavily abused. A truly IPv6-only network has no access to IPv4 resources. If it does, it isn’t really IPv6-only and relies upon IPv4 addresses and NAT to work.