IPv6 and CGNAT Support Survey of UK AltNet FTTP Broadband ISPs UPDATE7
The new generation of alternative gigabit-capable broadband ISP networks (AltNets) has helped to bring a huge amount of additional competition into the wider UK market. But one area where some of them fall down is in their use of technologies like CGNAT (IP address sharing) and the lack of IPv6 support.
Now, it’s fair to say that many ordinary consumers probably won’t care too much about things like this. But for IT people, as well as online gamers and those with particular security requirements, the approach an ISP takes to the use of Carrier Grade Network Address Translation (CGN), and any related support for the Internet Protocol v6 (IPv6) addressing standard, can make all the difference.
First, a little explainer. Everybody needs an Internet Protocol (IP) address to go online and your ISP is responsible for assigning one to your connection (it’s the internet equivalent of a phone number). Most ISPs tend to use Dynamic IP addresses for domestic connectivity, which changes each time your broadband link is disconnected and isn’t shared with other subscribers (at least not at the same time you’re using it).
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Some providers will also allow you to take a Static IP (Fixed IP) address, which remains the same no matter how many times you switch the connection on and off, albeit usually at an extra cost. However, the shift from the old IPv4 system, which has long since run out of spare addresses (buying IPv4’s now on the market is an expensive business), means that in order to add new connections some ISPs have had to adopt CGN.
CGNAT enables a single IP address to be shared between many users, and is thus seen by some ISPs as a useful solution for IPv4 shortages. But sharing IP addresses like this can also cause security and connectivity issues, which is something that more advanced users often prefer to avoid.
One way to reduce the negative impact from this is to ensure that the network supports the latest IPv6 addressing standard, but surprisingly there are still plenty of ISPs that have yet to properly adopt it. The reality is that some providers will need CGNAT until IPv6 has fully taken over, thus in the meantime more advanced users tend to look for ISPs that can mitigate this by both supporting IPv6 and offering Static IP addresses.
Surveying AltNets
The problem is that most AltNets, as well as ISP more generally, tend not to do a good job of communicating their use of CGNAT or IPv6 support. In addition, CGNAT support may vary between packages (e.g. you might see it on cheaper residential plans, but not necessarily the business variants of those). This can make it very difficult for more advanced / experienced users to figure out whether the new networks are able to cater for their needs.
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In recent years’ we’ve seen quite a few complaints about this, and so we’ve today responded by surveying each provider to identify their level of support. In cases where we couldn’t find enough consumer feedback to verify the details, then we’ve manually contacted providers to ask three simple questions:
1. Do your consumer broadband packages all support IPv6?
2. Do you offer a Static IP option to customers, and how much does it cost?
3. Do your consumer packages use CGNAT?
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Since manually surveying masses of AltNets would be far too laborious, we’ve instead opted to only focus on those with wider UK coverage (ideally in the tens of thousands of premises). We’ve also excluded any providers / networks where we had no solid or recent data on their coverage.
One catch here is that some operators are pure wholesale networks, which sometimes don’t operate their own optional retail provider, and in those cases we’ve opted to select two or more recognisable ISPs to represent them (note: IPv6 support is implemented at ISP level). Some of the ISPs we pick may be available via other networks too, but we try not to repeat the entries.
Survey Results
The outcome of our survey can be found below, with extra notes where relevant.
Pure Open Wholesale Networks with Multiple ISPs
TalkTalk
➤ IPv6 Support: No (TalkTalk claims their network supports it, but they haven’t enabled it)
➤ Static IP Available: No (only on business packages)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: NoVodafone
➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (free – but you have to request it)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: NoZen Internet
➤ IPv6 Support: Yes (although some customers say it was only applied on request)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (free)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: NoiDNET
➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (often included by default)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: NoOctaplus
➤ IPv6 Support: Yes (deployment started in August 2023)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: YesDirect Save Telecom
➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: ? (included on business plans)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: ?Yayzi Broadband
➤ IPv6 Support: No (but in the process of being added)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£2 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes (they’re removing this as IPv6 gets implemented)Squirrel Internet
➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: Yes
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: NoNOTE: Squirrel also work over FullFibre Limited, Freedom Fibre and Gigaclear.
MTH Networks
➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (from £6 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: NoNOTE: MTH also works with Freedom Fibre and OFNL.
Seethelight
➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: ? (included on business plans)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: NoDirect Save Telecom
➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: ? (included on business plans)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: ?
Take note that the results for open wholesale networks that have their own primary ISP (e.g. FullFibre Limited and F&W Networks) can be found mixed in below with the more vertically integrated providers.
Networks with a Primary ISP (often vertically integrated)
Airband
➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£10 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: YesAlncom
➤ IPv6 Support: Yes, currently being rolled out.
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: All packages get IPv4 host reservation on the global address, and they also offer IPv6 unicast and prefix delegation address reservation
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: NoBeFibre (FullFibre Ltd. and Digital Infrastructure)
➤ IPv6 Support: No (but told it’s on roadmap for 2024 sometime)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£4 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: Yes, /48 IPv6 included for free
➤ Static IP (v4) Available: Yes (£5 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: No (but you can get one on their business plans)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes (except the top 3Gbps tier, which is not CGNAT)➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 a month – free on business plans)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: ?
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: ?➤ IPv6 Support: No (but planned as part of core upgrade in 2024)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£6 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: No (“we’re dead against this“)➤ IPv6 Support: No (but due soon on Ecom Fibre)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 a month or free on biz plans)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: No➤ IPv6 Support: No (IPv4 by default, but network may be IPv6 capable)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£6 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: YesNOTE: Some customers report that FibreNest could not supply them with a static IP, despite it being advertised.
Freedom Fibre (TalkTalk)
➤ IPv6 Support: No (TalkTalk claims their network supports it, but they haven’t enabled it)
➤ Static IP Available: No (only on business packages)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: No➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£4.80 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: No (G.Network stated on 18th April 2024)➤ IPv6 Support: Yes (roll out due to complete in April 2025)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£2 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes (at least confirmed for new customers, previously this was ‘No’)➤ IPv6 Support: No (but “available to new GoFibre customers in the early part of 2024“)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£10 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes (on standard non-IPv6 products)➤ IPv6 Support: No (they claim it’s coming)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5.99 per month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: No (technically their network does support IPv6, but reports of issues with older kit)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 per month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: YesHey! Broadband (F&W Networks)
➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 per month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes (but can request for it to be removed and get dynamic public IPv4)Cuckoo (Fern Trading – Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre, Giganet and All Points Fibre)
➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£1 per month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: ?NOTE: At the time of writting the networks for Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre and Giganet are all in the process of being consolidated, with Cuckoo taking on the consumer retail side. Due to this it’s become a bit tricky to know what the final service options and capabilities are going to look like by the end of 2024.
➤ IPv6 Support: No (although their network is technically IPv6-ready, but not enabled on consumer plans)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (included by default)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: No➤ IPv6 Support: Yes (/62)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 per month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: No (we’re told it’s on the roadmap for sometime in 2024)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£10 a month, but due to be cut to £5 – free for biz users)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: No➤ IPv6 Support: ? (one customer reports having IPv6, but not enough to confirm)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£6 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: YesLilaConnect (VX FIBER , Freedom Fibre)
➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£6 a month – or included on their ‘Gamer’ package)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: YesNOTE: We had to get some extra clarification on this one, since ‘Static IP’ above has a different meaning with Lila. “We unfortunately do not offer a strictly Static IP at this time, we do offer Public IP’s that are delivered dynamically, however unless a change is forced (on our system) the IP does not change, so it acts as a Static.” So if you pay £6 extra for one, you’re actually getting a Public IP that rarely changes.
Netomnia (YouFibre)
➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 per month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: YesOgi
➤ IPv6 Support: Yes – partial (full native IPv6 being deploying during H1 2024)
➤ Static IP Available: No (but their IPv4s are quite sticky)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes and No (didn’t use CGNAT when asked, but was due to be added by end of 2023)NOTE: Ogi said that, once CGNAT is deployed, they will be able to optionally put customers back on an IPv4 address (we assume a static one) if they have problems that cannot be resolved. But the roll-out of native IPv6 should help to placate a lot of this.
➤ IPv6 Support: Yes and No (can only get IPv6 on request, but plan is to roll it out generally in 2024)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£2 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 a month, available on request but included on business plans)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes (but customers can manually request a move back to native IPv4 “if they have a valid technical reason“)➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: ? (£ a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: ?➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: ? (£ a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: ?➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£8 a month!)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: ? (£ a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: ?➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: Yes – on request (£? a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: Yes (Dual Stack)
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£5 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: Yes➤ IPv6 Support: Yes
➤ Static IP Available: Yes (£10 a month)
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: No
Please note that the above details were gathered gradually over three months between late 2023 and early 2024. As a result, it’s entirely possible that some of the information may have changed since we last checked, and we also weren’t able to fill in all the blanks (not everybody responded). Suffice to say, we’d very much appreciate it if the providers and our readers could help by informing us if any of this information needs updating.
UPDATE 11:11am
We’ve made a few updates to the listing following some useful feedback from readers and ISPs. I’ve also added Alncom after the provider submitted details.
UPDATE 19th June 2024
Updates to GoFibre, Seethelight, Hey! Broadband, Gigaclear and Lightspeed Broadband.
UPDATE 28th Aug 2024
Added MTH Networks.
UPDATE 11th Nov 2024
One Quickline customer reports that the ISP is now using CGNAT on their consumer plans, making the previous “No” statement uncertain.
UPDATE 3rd Dec 2024
Confirmed Quickline’s move to CGNAT via more customer feedback, but customers can request a move back to native IPv4 “if they have a valid technical reason“.
UPDATE 3rd Feb 2025
Updated Static IP price on Grain to £5.99.
UPDATE 19th March 2025
Updated Gigaclear, now deploying IPv6.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Community Fibre is not CGNAT on the top consumer plan (currently 3Gb).
Gigaclear do have the IPv6 network in place, they just refuse to enable it. They have bought plenty of IPv6 address blocks to use.
Most of the ISP’s that resell Gigaclear have the ability to enable it for the user, Squirrel Internet enable it as standard.
Gigaclear Tech Support say they are going to enable both CGNAT and IPv6 in 2024, which really doesn’t make sense, they are spending money rolling out CGNAT when IPv6 supersedes it.
I am about to be connected by Squirrel fingers crossed, and one of the reasons I went with them over Gigaclear is the fact they provide IPV6. So for some of us it does impact the provider we go with, and is a little daft a a provider using the wholesale function has it, but the main carrier does not.
> Gigaclear Tech Support say they are going to enable both CGNAT and IPv6 in 2024, which really doesn’t make sense, they are spending money rolling out CGNAT when IPv6 supersedes it.
IPv6 doesn’t supersede CGNAT at all.
All ISPs *must* provide connectivity to the IPv4 Internet, because most content is not reachable via IPv6 – and won’t be for many, many years (if ever).
Therefore, an ISP which provides IPv6 *must* also provide CGNAT at minimum – i.e. if they don’t give their customers individual IPv4 addresses.
I’m about to get Gigaclear in my area and keen to avoid CGNAT where I can. I know I can get a static IP but is there anything in contracts that stipulate the type of IP will you be given? Trying to work out whether I can sing up for a contract that issues a public IP without being impacted by a CGNAT implementation down the line.
I know that those with Community Fibre who took out sevice pre-CGNAT have retained their public IPs, unless they renew their contract.
Gigaclear are rolling out CGNAT as of at least early this year. I had to buy a static ip to retain access to my network when I’m not home!
The lack of V6 support is really annoying, because it would probably have meant I could have avoided buying an IP, although having said that the broader lack of V6 support means I’m probably better off having one until the wider internet has better support.
Disappointing so many ISPs don’t have ipv6. Especially a large ISP like Talk Talk.
Since TalkTalk don’t use CGNAT, what’s wrong with a dynamic ipv4 address?
@Ken it means the other side also requires IPv4, and connections traverse NAT gateways.
as someone who has ipv6 from isp but i disable it completely, i don’t see an issue with NAT. can someone explain the problem?
i don’t want my every single device in my house to have a publicly routable internet address. it seems like a recipe for disaster to me. I’m comfortable with the implementation of NAT and having a single gateway (my home wan entry point), i know how to provision networking rules so that i feel relatively safe.
none of this i guess i fully understand in ipv6, i just find it easier to disable it completely and be done with it. additionally on some levels i feel ipv6 is a privacy concern when every single device has a unique ip which is discernible.
> as someone who has ipv6 from isp but i disable it completely
Why would you do that?
> i don’t want my every single device in my house to have a publicly routable internet address
That’s what a firewall is for.
> I’m comfortable with the implementation of NAT and having a single gateway (my home wan entry point), i know how to provision networking rules so that i feel relatively safe
Then you should be able to provision firewall rules.
> additionally on some levels i feel ipv6 is a privacy concern when every single device has a unique ip which is discernible
Every single device has unique characteristics anyway — e.g. see https://amiunique.org/ . See RFC 4941 (IPv6 Privacy Extensions) if you want to avoid having a persistent public IPv6 address.
Personally I feel it would be useful I government funds could not be used by a firm (vouchers, BDUK etc.) unless they offered IPv6. I would also like to see CGNAT made illegal unless IPv6 is also offered.
The answers from some ISPs here only confuse things more and imply the vast majority, or their marketing departments at least, haven’t a technical clue!
It’s inexcusable in 2024 that any ISP would roll out CGNAT without also rolling out IPv6, as NAT breaks the “end to end” connectivity of IPv4 meaning IPv6 is then required for services such as VoIP etc.
There’s nothing special about IPv6 in 2024 and there’s no shortage of IPv6 addresses or cost for addresses involved, so not having IPv6 by now can only be only be due to incompetence or the use of already long obsolete equipment.
To add to that, it seems some of these ISPs seem to think that IPv6 is replacing IPv4, which is not going to the the case for many many years, with “dual stack” the expected intermediary solution. What I think they may be referring to in some cases is the use of NAT64 where the network uses IPv6 only, with DNS effectively “tunnelling” IPv4 over IPv6. NAT64 can work to allow an IPv6 only network to access IPv4 only services, but really isn’t ideal at all for home broadband users as a LOT of common services such as VoIP and gaming will break without actual IPv4 connectivity (real IP or CGNAT). However given that so many (a frankly shocking number) are not even dual-stack, it’s hard to know if that’s what they mean or if they just utterly clueless.
You shouldn’t even be considering rolling out CGNAT to home users until you have dual stack working, then you can usually get away with it in the majority of cases. The fact that so many are CGNAT only with no IPv6 indicates this is purely due to poor planning and cost cutting. I wonder what other corners have been cut.
Just to clarify, as I can’t edit.
When I say “incompetence” above this could be management, marketing, technical or even financial. I don’t want to imply the management, engineers or marketing at any particular ISP are “incompetent”, only that there has to be a level of incompetence or dysfunction present to end up in the situation where you’ve run out of IP addresses before you’ve fully implemented the required alternatives.
to add to this – BT and Sky, with a lot more legacy infrastructure, have IPv6 enabled network wide and have done for years
If they can do it, altnets and new ISPs have no excuse at all – especially when they’re most constrained by the IPv4 shortages.
CGNAT is also a privacy problem. The kinds of ads you see on a CGNAT ISP are weird, to say the least, and give you an idea of what kinds of people you’re sharing your IP with.
The privacy and security issues of CGNAT are real, but CGNAT is going to become unavoidable for at least the cheapest broadband services, as there just aren’t enough IPv4 addresses for everyone to have a real one. CGNAT also has performance and speed issues over native IPv4 and IPv6, not just because IPv6 tends to route faster than IPv4, but because you’re at the mercy of the bottleneck of connections to the CGNAT servers.
The solution to that shortage is IPv6. CGNAT is a bodge to keep things connected but CGNAT without IPv6 is not a “real” internet connection, as other users can’t connect back to you without an intermediary server, so no possibility of “peer to peer” connections and you always have to have a “man in the middle”. With CGNAT and IPv6 those issues almost all go away, or at the very least you have that option, as the majority of traffic is now IPv6 anyway (unless you have a clueless ISP that doesn’t support it).
There is no excuse for not supporting IPv6 in 2024. There is no excuse for rolling out CGNAT without having implemented IPv6 first.
Hi, I can add the following details to your list:
OFNL-based Merula:
IPv6: Yes, opt-in currently via support
IPv4: CGNAT is not used, static IP addresses offered
Jurassic Fibre:
IPv6: No, has been in development for the past two years but as of feedback last month from them, still no eta!
IPv4: Residential plans are CGNAT, Business plans are not and include a static IP. Myself and others I know have managed to get a static IP on residential by specifically stating that CGNAT doesn’t work with things such as work VPN. I was honest and said I required port forwarding to my firewall and that was enough for them.
Jurassic are definitely offering IPv6 to a significant number of customers, see https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS208687
I’m on Giganet (openreach) and have IPv6 just fine (with a static prefix allocation)
I am also not on CGNAT and have what seems to be a static ip allocation – though I think they have moved many customers over to this
Giganet support IPv6. Hopefully Cuckoo will use the resources and expertise of all involved to enable this across the whole network.
Something else providers don’t always make clear is what the expected upload speeds are, which is helpful for developers and anyone else uploading content.
I should note that when I first used Giganet they gave me a router that I wasn’t able to obtain an IPv6 address. I contacted them as I’m a developer. After trying multiple troubleshooting steps, they sent me another router which resolved the problem.
I’m with Zen and when I originally signed up on Openreach FTTC, I had IPv6 enabled without having to do anything. When I changed to Zen via CityFibre, I fairly quickly found that I’d lost IPv6 connectivity (I actually do use it) and had to contact support to ask where it had gone. It turned out it had to be enabled manually for some reason, but it’s now back as previously.
I did not realise that Zzoomm supported IPv6, so I set up my router for it, but will it make any difference to me? i did a what is my IP and it gave me my v4 and v6 IP address, so it does work. I have forgotten how complex IPv6 is, having not bothered to look at one for a while,
I normally use a VPN, and when I use that, the what is my IP site only sees a IPv4 address, so is it really worth me bothering with IPv6?
I know that ZZoomm don’t use CGNAT
> I did not realise that Zzoomm supported IPv6, so I set up my router for it, but will it make any difference to me?
Depends what you’re connecting to — I imagine most servers will be using some sort of gateway for IPv4 (to preserve address space), whereas IPv6 connections could go direct (as there’s a silly amount of address space available).
You’ll also be able to remove into your home network if you’re away from home on a network which is IPv6-only, but those are pretty rare at the moment.
people also seem to forget that IPv6 is meant to be invisible – if it is, your ISP has done a good job. It isn’t supposed to let you access things you couldn’t access before.
There isn’t meant to be a “point”. It just needs to work (and in doing so put us one step further to abandoning IPv4, CGNAT and other nonsense)
@Ivor, I did not realise IPv6 was meant to be invisible. I thought it was just a different way of having IP addresses, and would the address need to be visible for the computer to connect to it?
I have not really looked into IPv6, it looks too complex, I did read somewhere a while back that it don’t need NAT.
To be honest I have gone past bothering with all of that, as long as it works
Trooli
➤ IPv6 Support: No
➤ Static IP Available: Business Customers Only
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: ?
Trooli
IPv6 Support: yes
➤ Static IP Available: £5 a month
➤ CGNAT on Consumer Plans: No
Thank you for both helping to illustrate just how difficult it can be to get reliable data on all this :).
As regards Lightspeed Broadband: It uses CGNAT, no public static IP-address, hence it won’t be possible to run a CCTV, your own server, or certain IoT devices. The availability of a public static IP address was promised by its former CEO Steve Haines about 2 1/2 years ago, still no sign of offering it.
See also https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/11/lightspeed-broadband-list-next-fttp-rollout-towns-in-essex-and-norfolk.html#comment-254331
There are many devices (security cameras etc) that still do not support IPV6 so CGNAT even with IPV6 is no use.
However CGNAT is unfortunately becoming a necessary evil, but in my view it is unacceptable to deploy it without having IPV6 enabled as well. I’m not a gamer but I presume modern game consoles are IPV6 enabled so it shouldn’t be necessary to have to pay for a static IPV4 address.
> There are many devices (security cameras etc) that still do not support IPV6
Given the first IPv6 specification was published in 1995 (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1883), I can’t really see any excuse for this… Perhaps think of those devices in the same way as other not-fit-for-purpose hardware?
Disappointing so many fairly new ISPs launched without IPv6 but good to see a fair few (at least claim to) have deployment plans for this year.
Hyperoptic is a surprise, they appear to have ~80% support on APNIC (as BCUBE):
https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS56478
Octoplus seem to have backed out their initial deployment in January, now at 0.11% after a brief period around 10%:
https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS205771
Others have mentioned that Giganet have support IPv6 while the rest of the Cuckoo group do not. Hopefully the Giganet network will displace the others in that nest.
While some may not consider them an AltNet, I’ll take any opportunity to mention Virgin Media do not have IPv6 support.
On Vodafone (currently at ~30% IPv6 capable and rising): I contacted them on the 8th of March and they said they could not guarantee me IPv6 support, as a new connection, at the present time. So that would be a deployment in progress.
https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/AS5378
I’m with Hyperoptic for a few years and have had IPv6 since the start.
Echoing the comments that Hyperoptic do support IPv6, perhaps on their older builds they don’t which is why they are a “no”. All I can say is that I’ve had IPv6 on a network in a flat that was deployed in 2017, and on their fibre network in a house that was installed about a year ago.
New 2022 build here, no ipv6 from hyperoptic.
FYI:
– Swish Fibre charge £3 per static IP (see https://www.swishfibre.com/_files/ugd/d1ee3b_494830e475204303accf1b6655210355.pdf)
– Swish Fibre use CGNAT on all plans, unless a static IP is ordered
Swish’s static IP is MAC address based — they’ll initially assign the static IP to the MAC address of their router. If you connect your own router then you won’t get the static IP, but you will get a public IP. Contacting support gets this resolved by having the static IP assigned to the MAC address of your router.
Wildanet cgnat and static ipv4 via ipv6 tunnel. Only 2048 ipv4 in wild….shocking
still boggles that they were given government money to expand in Cornwall.
the article is inaccurate, Wildanet FTTP packages support dual-stack, meaning IPv4 and IPv6 side by side. there is no 4 to 6 tunnel involved.
you get either CGNAT IPv4 with Public IPv6, or Public IPv4 with Public IPv6.
That bit was from customer feedback supplied at the end of last year. Are you a customer, Andrew?
hi Mark
I am indeed, using it as I type. there is also no restriction on home router equipment which was mentioned too. I am using my own router, dual-stack IPv4/IPv6, works a treat!
From Airband’s website it appears they don’t support IPv6
https://www.airband.co.uk/knowledge-base/does-airband-support-ipv6/
Grain Connect user here, can report the following….
Ipv6: been told by 3 different “level 2” techs that ipv6 has been tryied but “does not play nice” with their current equipment and there is no rollout eta
CGNAT is on by default but does have a static option which i have due to security cameras and a homelab/nas setup however i get a 194.163 range which a lot of geo location sites show as being either in manchester or london (where the main hubs are), i also have had issues with driver downloads with some sites thinking im in germany (no issues with bbc, netflix, paramount, ect)
A note about speed, i use the router they supply in modem mode which they support/do remotely however i do not get the full 900 they advertise but max out around 700-800. When i asked about it i was told they cannot see any diagnostic data from the router/modem if its in router mode and will not give me access to the ui when i asked so i could investigate myself (even though they say on their help pages you can get access by asking). Despite this uptime has been 100% if you ignore me shutting down the network when i put in 2.5gig switches (got a good deal from amazon for 3 8 port zynel mg-108’s)
Sorry, no diagnostic data in modem mode. Router mode shows light levels, ect
At some point i will have to unplug everything except 1 laptop and ask for it to be put into router mode to see if they can see anything.
Identical behaviour here with Grain. Down to them not giving me access when the device is in bridge mode. Also on static IP in the same range.
Other things to note regarding Community Fibre
– When they switched my service to CGNAT by accident I lost IPv6 support, so there is a level of inconsistency in their setup that is worth validating when taking a service.
– When assigned an IPv4 address it is not very sticky and so changes often. This is a major issue with any system that uses IP addresses as part of any pre-validation/authentication process that ties local cookies to the requesting IP address. This results in me having to fully revalidate my login to certain services often. The more security-focused the service the more likely that they are doing such checks, with Cloudflare being a good example.
– They will use newly acquired IPv4 address range blocks without allowing enough time for all the geo databases to recognise the assignment. This caused issues with services that use the IP address to decide a user’s location. I saw this with The National Lottery for a few weeks who thought I was based outside of the UK and still have issues with an online game provider who thinks my IP address is an indication of a VPN service.
Can we expect a corresponding article on IPv6 support from the mobile network operators and MVNOs?
I’d also like to see this.
I’m only aware of EE and Three that have any IPv6 support.
Smarty (Three) & Spusu (EE) have both confirmed to me today that they don’t.
From recent first-hand experience, O2, Lycamobile (EE), Lebara (Voda) and Asda Mobile (Voda) all also don’t.
iD Mobile (Three) does not support IPv6 either, at least not on SIM only products.
We’re on County Broadband and can confirm that we get a public IP (no CGNAT). Port forwarding works but not for ports 80 or 443 through their supplied Altice router as you’re told its already in use. Static IP’s are £5/month as already stated in the article but the public dynamic ones are assigned by DHCP and rarely change if you leave your router on. They’ll even persist through reboots if you don’t keep it off very long.
Sounds suspiciously like County Broadband are exposing the router’s HTTP and HTTPS management to the internet, which would be an “interesting” decision.
I was with Vodafone for 4 years via cityfibre. They promised ipv6 for ages, yet I never saw a sniff of it. I moved off last October to zen.
It’s also worth highlighting what ipv6 delegation the isp offers. Most of them only seem to offer a /64 which wasn’t good enough gory requirements. Zen offer a /48 by default, and there is no good reason for any other isp not to do this as well, with the address space being so big.
I’m sure the same was said about v4 when AAISP were handing out /26s like candy so customers could have a routable address for each of their Kindles, C.
Zen, the same people who are handing out the /48s of IPv6, are selling a /16 of v4 as they’ve way more than they need and it’s become scarce. ISPs that actually need it are having to pay for something Zen got for free for being in the right place at the right time and have no use for.
A /48 for residential use is ridiculous regardless of how apparently abundant the resource is. Why not hand out /40s or /32s given there are so many addresses? About as much chance of a residential or enterprise user using them as there is a /48. A /64 contains more addresses than there are connected devices in the entire world. The good reason is it’s a pointless waste of a finite resource and it’s idiotic to assume endless abundance: Zen are profiteering from the last time address space was assumed to have endless abundance.
Over 15 years ago I had to fill in RIPE forms to account for a /29 while Zen, A&A and others were handing them out for fun. You’ll forgive me if my tolerance for this is minimal.
Why not hand out /40s or /32s given there are so many addresses?
A /48 is the smallest Internet routable IPv6 prefix. which means a network provider can build their whole environment around /48 assignments for all their customers regardless of their size – basic consumers up to any business offerings they may provide.
The only issue is that once we have populated much of the galaxy we may find issues. By allocating /48 ranges we can only allocate a maximum of 2^80 possible networks or only 2^48 times the total address range of IPv4.
/24 is the longest IPv4 prefix that’s routable on the public Internet, prefix being the masked part of the subnet, I don’t see everyone being given one of those. Supernets are a thing.
My point was a /48 versus a /56 is pointless. Even the largest enterprise doesn’t need a /48 and has no prospect of one. It’s the ISP’s choice of course but no practical benefits to it.
No prospect of needing one I meant. The ones wanting PI space will get one of course, they need it to advertise it across multiple providers, everyone else a non-issue. Residential customers don’t have an ASN, nearly all businesses don’t have an ASN, they’ll use PA space.
Merula operating on OFNL also offer IPv6 as well as /29 IPv4 for residential customers.
This discussion has been surprisingly popcorn worthy.
Can you check with Squirrel as in the their FAQ in Routers and Tech they mention IPv4 and Ipv6 and the prices on MS3 are very good.
https://www.squirrel.uk.net/faqs
CGNAT = Glorified coffee shop WiFi
Lol. Hilarious
Saying this incomplete is useless is like not saying anything. Why did you even started this without making proper research first?
Update from WightFibre.
1. IPv6. Yes
2. Static IPv4 addresses available on request, charges vary
3. Yes, CGNAT in operation on consumer packages
Can you define how the charges vary and by how much?
I’d love to see this survey supplemented with information about the ISP’s IPv6 offerings, including:
* Is DHCPv6 prefix delegation supported? (If not then I don’t think an ISP should be able to claim they support IPv6)
* How large is the delegated prefix? (A customer should be delegated a /48 at a minimum IMO!)
* Is the delegated prefix permanently assigned to the customer? (Renumbering is a nightmare, so it’s in the ISP’s best interest to assign them permanently to avoid support calls when the network is renumbered)
You have to force IPv6 on the ISPs. That means no selling/buying of ranges. If a block somehow does come free, it should be returned to the central registry never to be used again.
This.
I hope someone does a nice class action lawsuit about the internet traffic discrimination issue, sue BT+VirginMedia and the rest will follow…
Gigaclear do force CGNAT on you, I went live yesterday and was told my only option was to pay for a static IP.
Sharp practice imo. Without IPv6 using CGNAT is like a mobile phone company selling you a phone without a phone number for inbound calls. You can make outbound ones!
Hyperoptic used to provide IPv6 service with a static /56 PD. It broke last year at our premises and they seem totally incapable of providing any support to restore it whatsoever or to acknowledge that there’s even a problem with it.
If you mention IPv6 in your support ticket you may as well be speaking swahili 🙁
As you’re stuck behind CGN you’re screwed for any incoming connectivity that isn’t initiated from the inside without either paying the GBP5 per month static tax or hoping against hope that they get their shit together and fix it.
I aint holding my breath
Monkey Tree Hosting (MTH Networks) on top of OFNL support IPv6. I had to opt in but apparently it’s due to be rolled out.
I get a non-CGNAT IPv4 address.
Note, you only get a single /64 subnet on IPv6 so no VLANs possible (or at least not all with IPv6).
Lightspeed Broadband as of today are offering static IP’s.
Hey! Broadband (F&W Networks) confirmed still as not supporting IPv6, however CGNAT is optional, you can contact support to have it removed as of April 2024 at no cost, you are then assigned a dyanmic public IPv4.
Still some issues with the IPv4 addresses they use as I am sometimes geolocated as outside the UK.
Gofibre
Static IP: £10 per month
See The Light on OFNL
No ipv6
No CG-NAT
Static IP only on business plans
also U/L speeds on packages a lot lower than other OFNL providers.