T-Mobile’s path to IPv6 Only

Rocky Mountain IPv6 Taskforce · 2K views · 2017 · 52:31

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Networking & internet infrastructuretalkdated

Why Hacker News recommends it

It is the standard citation in IPv6 threads that large mobile carriers already run phones with only IPv6 addresses.

What it is

A Rocky Mountain IPv6 Taskforce talk in which T-Mobile's Stephan Lagerholm explains how the carrier went IPv6-only using DNS64 and 464XLAT, with a live Android demo and best practices.

Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2017 to 2025.

What Hacker News said

Recommends MrRadar · 2017-06 · on “Five years of IPv6: whither the next five?”

It's interesting how his chart deflects somewhere around 80%, since at the 2017 Rocky Mountain IPv6 Summit that's about where T-Mobile US (who probably have the highest penetration of IPv6-capable endpoints of any ISP) noted their transition started slowing drastically.[0] The main reasons are that the remaining devices are old (e.g. 3G phones), have limited capabilities/needs (e.g. embedded IoT devices which just need to phone home once in a while), or are using odd configurations (e.g. for some reason T-Mobile doesn't currently support IPv6 for tethering). Another good talk from that conference is about how Carrier Grade NATs are (amazingly) even worse in practice than they sound in theory

Cites throw0101a · 2021-08 · on “India is leading IPv6 migration with 61.67% adoption”

I'm not sure what you're referring to. Here's a dude from T-Mobile explaining how they have (in 2017) over ten million end-customer devices without any IPv4 addresses assigned: * [this video] For reaching services that are IPv6 only they use(d) DNS64 (with and without 464XLAT).

Cites throw0101a · 2021-08 · on “IPv4 vs. IPv6 FAQ”

> This should help address these types of issues so more devs can get onto iOS more easily without having to meet Apple's level of requirements. Well if an app developer does not ensure that their code works on a device that only has an IPv6 address they will be in for a big surprise: lots of mobile telcos only give out IPv6 addresses. Connecting to the IPv4 world is done via CG-NAT with the first few hops being IPv6-only. Here's a guy from T-Mobile presenting on it: * [this video]

Cites throw0101a · 2021-12 · on “IPv4 Waiting List”

> I wonder when (or if) we will see new IPv6 only ISPs. If you have a mobile device on US T-Mobile you only get a IPv6 address on it: * [this video] * [LINK] * [LINK] Any access to IPv4 is through a proxy.

Cites throw0101a · 2022-01 · on “Reasons for servers to support IPv6”

> What's really interesting is how many of these "we fear change" IT people don't realize they're already using IPv6 on their phones every day, with a majority of the sites they visit. For example see the video "T-Mobile’s path to IPv6 Only": * [this video]

Cites throw0101a · 2022-02 · on “The Formation of IPv4 Address Markets (2021)”

"T-Mobile’s path to IPv6 Only": > For the past 10 years [US] T-Mobile has worked towards creating an IPv6 environment and we are now getting very close to our goal. Stephan presents learning on how to successfully enable IPv6-only using DNS64 with or without 464XLAT. He will do a live demo of the different IP interfaces on an Android handset. Finally, he will discuss and give some best practices on how to handle DNS, applications, and websites that are having issues with DNS64. * [this video] Apple mandated that all app in the iOS/mobile App Store had to support working on IPv6-only networks: * [LINK] Perhaps they should to the same thing for the macOS App Store.

Cites zacwest · 2022-02 · on “The Formation of IPv4 Address Markets (2021)”

iPhones on T-Mobile do not use 464XLAT, they use native IPv6 only. Some system frameworks like URLSession can do the NAT64 translation of hard-coded IPv4 addresses but it still goes over IPv6. In the video linked above: [this video]

Cites throw0101a · 2022-06 · on “Is IPv6 faster than IPv4?”

> Anyone running v6 only and bridging to v4 on the edge? If you are on T-Mobile USA you are IPv6-only on your mobile device: * [LINK] * [this video] Lots of folks are probably IPv6-only without realizing it.