IPv6

[AlecEdworthy]

Hello,

When I was on Three (switched this week) I got an IPv6 address when on mobile data on my iPhone 12.  Now I've switched to SMARTY I still appear to have an IPv6 address allocated to my device, however it does not work (feels like a routing issue).  Does SMARTY support IPv6, and if not are there plans for it to support it in the near future please?

Kind regards, Alec

[Chalkychap]

What makes you suspect the IPv6 address doesn't work @AlecEdworthy?

Not everybody online supports IPv6 yet, but you'd like to think mobile network operators do, whether they're operating an actual or virtual mobile network.

[AlecEdworthy]

What makes me suspect that it doesn't work?  Well, where to begin 😀 The two main indicators for me are that when I attempt to connect to a website which is specifically only available over IPv6 (both ones I operate and commercially available ones) it fails.  Also if I attempt to ping or traceroute to an IPv6 host it fails (I don't even get first hop resolution).  I fully understand that not all operators support IPv6, I'm just surprised that SMARTY (given they operate on Three's network) don't appear to support IPv6 despite Three making heavy use of it themselves.  It's not a major issue for me, I'd just like to get some confirmation from someone who works for SMARTY whether or not it's supposed to work and if not then when/if they expect to support it in the future.  It seems strange that an IPv6 address is allocated but the routing doesn't appear to actually work.

A

[WelshPaul]

Interesting... I have only ever been assigned an IPv4 address with SMARTY.

[Chalkychap]

I seem to be in the same boat as @WelshPaul - apparently I'm only allocated an IPv4 address by the service provider (Hutchison 3G UK Limited).

I wonder if being on the 5G RAN would make a difference here @AlecEdworthy? 
You'd like to think 5G mobile network data connections were using IPv6.

[AlecEdworthy]

I think I was on a 5G tower one time I've checked but I'll make sure to check again later. Out of curiosity, what are you @Chalkychap and @WelshPaul using to determine whether or not your device's cellular data interface has been assigned an IPv6 address please? I'm using Hurricane Electric's Network Tools on my iPhone 12.

[AlecEdworthy]

Yep, confirmed that even in a 5G area I don't get working IPv6 connectivity (where working is determined by being able to access a website only served over IPv6 or make an IPv6 based connection using UDP thereby mimicking a ping test).  The address I appear to have been assigned here, 2a04:4a43:5a:1217:364:8856:e2f0:eaaa is part of Three's mobile broadband assignment,

inet6num: 2a04:4a43::/32
netname: H3GUK
descr: Mobile Broadband Service
country: GB
admin-c: HURa1-RIPE
tech-c: HURa1-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED
mnt-by: H3GUK-MNT
created: 2021-10-05T08:00:24Z
last-modified: 2021-10-05T08:00:24Z
source: RIPE

[Chalkychap]

Okay, nothing fancy just opened my web browser and entered the following URL: 

https://whatismyipaddress.com/

This usually reports the public IP address/es assigned by your ISP for your data connection. 

[AlecEdworthy]

If you use http://ip6.me/ then your client uses IPv4 or IPv6 as it prefers (obviously if the client doesn't have a functional IPv6 connection it will only try IPv4) and offers both IPv6-only (http://ip6only.me/) and IPv4-only (http://ip4.me/) tests too.