5 ms·

Latency in IPv4 vs. IPv6 – Understanding the difference [pdf]

43 points by liotier 11y ago

detaro 11y ago
TL;DR: IPv4 and IPv6 routing topologies of the internet are different. Especially of note is that AS6939 (Hurricane Electric, who also offer free IPv6 tunnels and generally do a lot to help IPv6 adoption) peers with A LOT of networks and thus sits in the "core" of IPv6 internet, connecting many networks on relatively short paths.
- api 11y ago
  I've always thought the free tunnel broker was a brilliant strategy for them.
IgorPartola 11y ago
One other nice benefit of IPv6? It seems that ISP's are less likely to mess with it. I use a Hurricane Electric tunnel and have not had any issues with YouTube videos on Time Warner, Comcast, or Charter. In the meantime, other customers of at least Time Warner and Comcast have reported lots of issues with network throttling.
- detaro 11y ago
  If you tunnel somewhere, it doesn't matter (to how your ISP can treat it) if you send IPv4 or IPv6 over your tunnel
  - IgorPartola 11y ago
    Right. It helps that YouTube supports IPv6 so this is all transparent to me. There's also a difference between a protocol 41 tunnel and a VPN: most VPN's encrypt the traffic so the ISP cannot mess with it at all (other than slowing down all VPN traffic), while with protocol 41 they can detect it and do deep packet inspection, but they currently don't seem to take it this far.
- steckerbrett 11y ago
  Hurricane Electric itself blocks some things though, for example you can't use IRC on standard ports through a HE tunnel.
  - IgorPartola 11y ago
    This used to be a per-tunnel setting that you could turn on yourself. Now it seems that you need to email their support for approval (after completing the certification to the Sage level which isn't hard). I agree, this kind of sucks, but then again, I haven't had issues actually using IRC at all so I'm pretty happy.
PaulHoule 11y ago
Does this really mean anything at all? I'd imagine that IPv6 users would be people with better internet connection and that everybody in DS(hel)L country would be stuck with the short end of the stcik in every sense.
- mino 11y ago
  Actually, a considerable part of world's IPv6 population are DSL users nowadays.
mino 11y ago
Here is the video and its transcript: https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/111/ https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/111/ It was a great talk, I attended it in person today. Let me also point out these other two very interesting talks from the same session: 1] A clever mindset from Geoff Huston (APNIC) to target IPv6 expansion: try to address rich people first! https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/118/ https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/118/ 2] A surprising statistic from RIPE itself: "The R&D team discovered that more than 400 LIRs stopped announcing their IPv6 prefixes in the last 12 months". https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/122/ https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/122/

43 points by liotier 11y ago

TL;DR: IPv4 and IPv6 routing topologies of the internet are different. Especially of note is that AS6939 (Hurricane Electric, who also offer free IPv6 tunnels and generally do a lot to help IPv6 adoption) peers with A LOT of networks and thus sits in the "core" of IPv6 internet, connecting many networks on relatively short paths.

api 11y ago
I've always thought the free tunnel broker was a brilliant strategy for them.

IgorPartola 11y ago

One other nice benefit of IPv6? It seems that ISP's are less likely to mess with it. I use a Hurricane Electric tunnel and have not had any issues with YouTube videos on Time Warner, Comcast, or Charter. In the meantime, other customers of at least Time Warner and Comcast have reported lots of issues with network throttling.

detaro 11y ago
If you tunnel somewhere, it doesn't matter (to how your ISP can treat it) if you send IPv4 or IPv6 over your tunnel
- IgorPartola 11y ago
  Right. It helps that YouTube supports IPv6 so this is all transparent to me. There's also a difference between a protocol 41 tunnel and a VPN: most VPN's encrypt the traffic so the ISP cannot mess with it at all (other than slowing down all VPN traffic), while with protocol 41 they can detect it and do deep packet inspection, but they currently don't seem to take it this far.
steckerbrett 11y ago
Hurricane Electric itself blocks some things though, for example you can't use IRC on standard ports through a HE tunnel.
- IgorPartola 11y ago
  This used to be a per-tunnel setting that you could turn on yourself. Now it seems that you need to email their support for approval (after completing the certification to the Sage level which isn't hard). I agree, this kind of sucks, but then again, I haven't had issues actually using IRC at all so I'm pretty happy.

PaulHoule 11y ago

Does this really mean anything at all? I'd imagine that IPv6 users would be people with better internet connection and that everybody in DS(hel)L country would be stuck with the short end of the stcik in every sense.

mino 11y ago
Actually, a considerable part of world's IPv6 population are DSL users nowadays.

mino 11y ago

Here is the video and its transcript: https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/111/ https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/111/ It was a great talk, I attended it in person today. Let me also point out these other two very interesting talks from the same session: 1] A clever mindset from Geoff Huston (APNIC) to target IPv6 expansion: try to address rich people first! https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/118/ https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/118/ 2] A surprising statistic from RIPE itself: "The R&D team discovered that more than 400 LIRs stopped announcing their IPv6 prefixes in the last 12 months". https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/122/ https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/122/