More O2 UK Mobile Customers Spot Hints of Future IPv6 Deployment
A small but growing number of O2 UK’s (Virgin Media) mobile customers have reported that the operator has assigned an Internet Protocol v6 (IPv6) address to their connections, although in most cases the IP address itself is not fully functional (certainly doesn’t work on data / mobile broadband connections).
At this point we’ve long since given up chasing the industry’s remaining IPv6 laggards, such as Virgin Media and O2, to find out when they’ll get around to actually deploying it – this is largely due to the many false starts and missed promises we’ve seen over the years. But we do still keep an eye out for any practical developments on this front.
Suffice to say that, over the past couple of months, we’ve seen a noticeable up-tick in O2 customers, both directly and via some of their MVNO partners on the same platform (e.g. giffgaff), reporting that their mobile connections and Smartphones have been assigned an IPv6 address – even if the v6 address itself doesn’t appear to function (e.g. you can’t ping them) and hasn’t yet been fully assigned to an ASN (Autonomous System Number).
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So far all of the IPv6 addresses we’ve had reported appear to form part of the same 2a03:dd00::/32 (CIDR) range, which is owned by Telefonica UK Limited. But O2 itself remains vague on their plans, with a spokesperson telling ISPreview: “We are continually reviewing our IPv6 strategy and will announce any plans in due course.” Back to waiting, then.
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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IPv6 on O2? They’ll be switching off 3G and getting VoLTE working next! Welcome to 2012 O2.
Does VoLTE not work on o2?
VoLTE has worked just fine on O2. PAYG is another thing, although they’re getting it shortly. Giffgaff now has it too. “should” in theory work on Sky as well, but only with supported devices that Sky state.
Some ISPs have had IPV6 enabled for nearly a decade now. It’s unbelievable that it hasn’t been universally rolled out now, especially with the inevitable increase of the use of CGNAT.
The problem is that:
– you can still buy IPv4 blocks,
– sh*t ISPs keep all of their customers behind CGNAT so basically they need just a few of IPV4 addresses.
the worst bit is that sh*t ISPs will happily accept the complication of CGNAT and spend the money and network engineering effort on it while claiming IPv6 is unnecessary or complicated or .
If BT and Sky can do it on what some will term “legacy networks”, there is no excuse for the hordes of recent altnet entrants to not be fully IPv6 capable from day one.
Ditto on mobile, where again EE has been the market leader on v6 support for some time. They had it working before they replaced their mobile core network too.
Isn’t a blanket block on unsolicited inbound IPv6 fairly standard for mobile networks, or at least on SIMs designed to be used in mobile devices as opposed to fixed 5G.
It makes sense with 5G SA and MNOs dropping the legacy 2G and 3G networks to finally also enable IPv6 if only to just be ready for the future
Also in regards to the not being able to ping the IPv6 address, I read a post on the forum that EE/BT block incoming IPv6 connections at the carrier level in order to stop unsolicited traffic eating peoples data allowances, maybe O2 are going to do the same:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/what-nat-type-is-vodafone-ee-02-and-three-network-using.37039/#post-254987
Yes, it is exactly what they do + all inbound ports blocked by default. Not working outbound routing is different matter but we can assume they are testing it.
This whole IPV6 addtion to o2 makes me think they are geering up for enabling RCS on iphones as If your network does not support IPv6, RCS ceases to function on iOS
surely this so they can support RCS on iPhone as apparently IPv6 is required so that RCS works on iPhones
Yes!!! I now have a 2a03:dd00:: IPv6 address on the cellular interface on my iPhone on Giffgaff.
(checked using Hurricane Electric Network Tools https://networktools.he.net/)
Looking forward to it becoming routable
A non routable IPv6 address usually means they’re using it for VoLTE.
The VoLTE spec requires IPv6, and while you can technically kludge it to work with legacy IP doing so it out of spec and not all devices will support that.