Comment by nine_k

5 days ago

This is not even funny to read, given huge networks like T-Mobile USA being IPv6-only.

Yep, mobile device space ISPs again which is what keeps being argued. IPv6 only connections will never gain full traction outside of the mobile marketplace.

They are using IPv6 as a fancy transport protocol for IPv4 NAT.

  • By being IPv6-only they are effectively making their users to preferentially connect over native IPv6 though.

    Personal anecdote, but once you have IPv6 setup properly (meaning your devices prefer IPv6 over IPv4) 70-80% of your internet traffic will be IPv6.

    The NAT64 is really just there for the holdouts.

    • I run dual stack at home with dns64/nat64. I average 50/50 traffic v4/v6. Web browsing gets skewed v6 but large file transfers and some streaming pushed it back to 50/50 overall. My family would revolt if I went v6 only so I'm not sure I'd say its just there for holdouts. Major annoyances include any old device and my hue bridge.

  • That's a bit like saying AC electricity was just a fancy way of delivering what customers really wanted, DC energy.

    I'm sure that DC customers used their Edison DC equipment for decades after the grid went AC only; but in the long run the newer, flexible, lower overhead system became the default for new equipment and the compatibility cludges were abandoned.

    • Well, yes. Except that AC came to dominance much faster than IPv6, the AC/DC war lasted less than 10 years, with the AC quickly coming to domination. Because AC provides a clear performance advantage over DC.

      This is not really true of IPv6. It _still_ has tons of actual operational issues, and in the best case, it does not provide any tangible improvements over IPv4+NAT for the vast majority of users.

      For example, in-flight entertainment works by assigning you an IPv4 address and allowlisting it in the gateway rules. This does not work with IPv6 because of privacy addresses and SLAAC. You might think that you just need to do stateful DHCPv6, but Android doesn't support it. Heck, even simple DHCPv6 PD automatic configuration is _still_ not a standard ( https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc9762/ )!

      So to this day, some of the most visited sites like amazon.com, ebay.com, tiktok.com, slack.com or even github.com do not support IPv6. I also keep providing this example, year after year: there are no public VoIP SIP providers in the US that simply _support_ IPv6. Go on, try to find one.

  • No; most sites I reach from the phone seem to be reached via IPv6. E.g. hitting whatismyip.org exposes an IPv6 (though mentions an IPv4 because they're trying to discover that, too). Some sites do not support IPv6; for those indeed there's a XLAT464 service.