5 ms·

Over 25% of Verizon Wireless Traffic Is Now Over IPv6

77 points by vy8vWJlco 14y ago

Aloisius 14y ago
Google is reporting that 2.5% of the US is using IPv6, 2.3% of Germany and 5.2% of France. That's far higher than I would have thought.
NelsonMinar 14y ago
At first read I thought the headline meant that 25% of consumer traffic was going to IPv6 sites, which seems impossibly high. But the article says "This reflects the fact that IPv6 is part of Verizon’s rollout of LTE". Does that mean IPv6 is all just internal in Verizon's network and invisible to consumers? If I have an LTE iPhone on Verizon, is it even capable of talking to an IPv6 site? Related, from links in the article: Google has a graph showing that over 1% of their users now have IPv6 available. http://www.google.com/ipv6/statistics.html http://www.google.com/ipv6/statistics.html
- xhrpost 14y ago
  I just checked whatismyipv6.com from my LTE Verizon phone and it returned an IPv6 address. The site itself can be access from IPv4 as well but it will inform you if this happens.
- zaphoyd 14y ago
  From what I can gather the traffic figures reported by the ipv6 launch site (25% for Verizon Wireless) are traffic in/out of the various ASNs listed. So it is in fact 25% of Verizon Wireless's customer traffic is over IPv6 to IPv6 enabled content. This is actually not as strange as it might seem. Google/Bing/Facebook/Youtube/Netflix/Wikipedia and the iTunes store are all available over IPv6. These properties represent a significant portion of typical mobile device traffic. That 11% of the remaining Alexa top 1000 properties are IPv6 enabled doesn't hurt either. Lastly, practically 100% of VZW's LTE customers are using handsets and operating systems that support IPv6 so they don't have the issues Comcast has with ancient home routers and modems stopping people from using the v6 service that is provided.
  - NelsonMinar 14y ago
    Thanks for clarifying this! So this 25% really is consumer traffic, and Verizon is so high because they default to preferring IPv6 servers when available? That's great news for IPv6 adoption. It's also consistent with what's reported later in the article, about IPv6 prevalence at various other installations.
    - zaphoyd 14y ago
      "defaulting" to IPv6 is something that is done on the DNS/client end. Verizon is so high because they have a brand new network that was built from the ground up with mandatory IPv6 support for all devices required. See the presentation notes that ejdyksen posted above for more information. For mobile networks IPv6 has a better business case than most networks. Mobile networks are new enough that they don't typically have large blocks of addresses ready to use so every IPv6 packet is one that doesn't take resources on your expensive CGN gear. T-mobile's wireless network is also fully IPv6 enabled.
    - ejdyksen 14y ago
      As zaphoyd said, Verizon doesn't default to IPv6. Dual-stack devices should be using the Happy Eyeballs [1,2] algorithm to choose whether to use IPv4 or IPv6. [1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6555 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6555 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Eyeballs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Eyeballs
- ejdyksen 14y ago
  > If I have an LTE iPhone on Verizon, is it even capable of talking to an IPv6 site? Yes. All LTE devices on Verizon are given real, globally routable IPv6 addresses. You can test this here: http://test-ipv6.com http://test-ipv6.com. This presentation [1] is pretty interesting, showing how aggressive Verizon was with IPv6 on their LTE network. > At first read I thought the headline meant that 25% of consumer traffic was going to IPv6 sites, which seems impossibly high. Keep in mind that many popular websites--Yahoo, Facebook and Google among them--now publish AAAA records in DNS. With that in mind, this statistic isn't that unreasonable. If you have a Verizon iPhone, you're probably reaching Google via IPv6 without realizing it. [1] http://conference.apnic.net/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/50813/vzw_apnic_13462152832-2.pdf http://conference.apnic.net/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/5081...
  - twoodfin 14y ago
    > Yes. All LTE devices on Verizon are given real, globally routable IPv6 addresses. With globally routable addresses, where is the protection for attached devices from global attacks? Does VZW firewall their network, or are they relying on their supported devices not having open, vulnerable ports?
    - zaphoyd 14y ago
      Verizon runs an IPv6 firewall on their LTE network. This means that even with a public IPv6 address you still can't make a connection to your phone from the outside. I understand why they did it, but it is sad to not be able to SSH into my LTE device over the WAN.. Maybe that will be an optional feature in the future?
    - dfc 14y ago
      I was a little surprised by your comment. Maybe I'm reading it wrong but it seems that you expect your service provider to filter traffic for you. I have the exact opposite expectation. Do you expect the same thing from your ISP at home?
      - twoodfin 14y ago
umsm 14y ago
I'm surprised that DreamHost is listed at over 29%...
- zaphoyd 14y ago
  Dreamhost was one of the first major shared hosting providers to make adding IPv6 addresses to your sites dead simple. I wouldn't be surprised if this has attracted a number of early adopting IPv6 customers.
- le 14y ago
  They also account for an infinitesimally small amount of global net traffic. Their rapid adoption of IPv6 is more symbolic than anything else. And it got them mentioned here, so presumably it was a success.
paxswill 14y ago
It's not too surprising to see SPAWAR [0] up so high; the US Department of Defense has required IPv6 compatibility for devices being added to their networks for a while now (I think around 2003)[1]. If you scroll a bit further down the list, Defense Research and Engineering Network (DREN) is at 8.32% as well. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_and_Naval_Warfare_Systems_Command http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_and_Naval_Warfare_Systems... [1]: http://www.usipv6.com/ppt/IPv6SummitPresentationFinalCaptDixon.pdf http://www.usipv6.com/ppt/IPv6SummitPresentationFinalCaptDix...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- EvanKelly 14y ago
  SPAWAR Pacific began their IPv6 transition pilot in 2003. You can read some of the lessons learned here [0]. [0]:http://fcw.com/articles/2010/08/17/navy-shares-ipv6-lessons.aspx http://fcw.com/articles/2010/08/17/navy-shares-ipv6-lessons....
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

77 points by vy8vWJlco 14y ago

Google is reporting that 2.5% of the US is using IPv6, 2.3% of Germany and 5.2% of France. That's far higher than I would have thought.

NelsonMinar 14y ago

At first read I thought the headline meant that 25% of consumer traffic was going to IPv6 sites, which seems impossibly high. But the article says "This reflects the fact that IPv6 is part of Verizon’s rollout of LTE". Does that mean IPv6 is all just internal in Verizon's network and invisible to consumers? If I have an LTE iPhone on Verizon, is it even capable of talking to an IPv6 site? Related, from links in the article: Google has a graph showing that over 1% of their users now have IPv6 available. http://www.google.com/ipv6/statistics.html http://www.google.com/ipv6/statistics.html

xhrpost 14y ago
I just checked whatismyipv6.com from my LTE Verizon phone and it returned an IPv6 address. The site itself can be access from IPv4 as well but it will inform you if this happens.
zaphoyd 14y ago
From what I can gather the traffic figures reported by the ipv6 launch site (25% for Verizon Wireless) are traffic in/out of the various ASNs listed. So it is in fact 25% of Verizon Wireless's customer traffic is over IPv6 to IPv6 enabled content. This is actually not as strange as it might seem. Google/Bing/Facebook/Youtube/Netflix/Wikipedia and the iTunes store are all available over IPv6. These properties represent a significant portion of typical mobile device traffic. That 11% of the remaining Alexa top 1000 properties are IPv6 enabled doesn't hurt either. Lastly, practically 100% of VZW's LTE customers are using handsets and operating systems that support IPv6 so they don't have the issues Comcast has with ancient home routers and modems stopping people from using the v6 service that is provided.
- NelsonMinar 14y ago
  Thanks for clarifying this! So this 25% really is consumer traffic, and Verizon is so high because they default to preferring IPv6 servers when available? That's great news for IPv6 adoption. It's also consistent with what's reported later in the article, about IPv6 prevalence at various other installations.
  - zaphoyd 14y ago
    "defaulting" to IPv6 is something that is done on the DNS/client end. Verizon is so high because they have a brand new network that was built from the ground up with mandatory IPv6 support for all devices required. See the presentation notes that ejdyksen posted above for more information. For mobile networks IPv6 has a better business case than most networks. Mobile networks are new enough that they don't typically have large blocks of addresses ready to use so every IPv6 packet is one that doesn't take resources on your expensive CGN gear. T-mobile's wireless network is also fully IPv6 enabled.
  - ejdyksen 14y ago
    As zaphoyd said, Verizon doesn't default to IPv6. Dual-stack devices should be using the Happy Eyeballs [1,2] algorithm to choose whether to use IPv4 or IPv6. [1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6555 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6555 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Eyeballs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Eyeballs
ejdyksen 14y ago
> If I have an LTE iPhone on Verizon, is it even capable of talking to an IPv6 site? Yes. All LTE devices on Verizon are given real, globally routable IPv6 addresses. You can test this here: http://test-ipv6.com http://test-ipv6.com. This presentation [1] is pretty interesting, showing how aggressive Verizon was with IPv6 on their LTE network. > At first read I thought the headline meant that 25% of consumer traffic was going to IPv6 sites, which seems impossibly high. Keep in mind that many popular websites--Yahoo, Facebook and Google among them--now publish AAAA records in DNS. With that in mind, this statistic isn't that unreasonable. If you have a Verizon iPhone, you're probably reaching Google via IPv6 without realizing it. [1] http://conference.apnic.net/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/50813/vzw_apnic_13462152832-2.pdf http://conference.apnic.net/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/5081...
- twoodfin 14y ago
  > Yes. All LTE devices on Verizon are given real, globally routable IPv6 addresses. With globally routable addresses, where is the protection for attached devices from global attacks? Does VZW firewall their network, or are they relying on their supported devices not having open, vulnerable ports?
  - zaphoyd 14y ago
    Verizon runs an IPv6 firewall on their LTE network. This means that even with a public IPv6 address you still can't make a connection to your phone from the outside. I understand why they did it, but it is sad to not be able to SSH into my LTE device over the WAN.. Maybe that will be an optional feature in the future?
  - dfc 14y ago
    I was a little surprised by your comment. Maybe I'm reading it wrong but it seems that you expect your service provider to filter traffic for you. I have the exact opposite expectation. Do you expect the same thing from your ISP at home?
    - twoodfin 14y ago

umsm 14y ago

I'm surprised that DreamHost is listed at over 29%...

zaphoyd 14y ago
Dreamhost was one of the first major shared hosting providers to make adding IPv6 addresses to your sites dead simple. I wouldn't be surprised if this has attracted a number of early adopting IPv6 customers.
le 14y ago
They also account for an infinitesimally small amount of global net traffic. Their rapid adoption of IPv6 is more symbolic than anything else. And it got them mentioned here, so presumably it was a success.

paxswill 14y ago

It's not too surprising to see SPAWAR [0] up so high; the US Department of Defense has required IPv6 compatibility for devices being added to their networks for a while now (I think around 2003)[1]. If you scroll a bit further down the list, Defense Research and Engineering Network (DREN) is at 8.32% as well. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_and_Naval_Warfare_Systems_Command http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_and_Naval_Warfare_Systems... [1]: http://www.usipv6.com/ppt/IPv6SummitPresentationFinalCaptDixon.pdf http://www.usipv6.com/ppt/IPv6SummitPresentationFinalCaptDix...

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
EvanKelly 14y ago
SPAWAR Pacific began their IPv6 transition pilot in 2003. You can read some of the lessons learned here [0]. [0]:http://fcw.com/articles/2010/08/17/navy-shares-ipv6-lessons.aspx http://fcw.com/articles/2010/08/17/navy-shares-ipv6-lessons....

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]