Tell HN: Sprint no longer assigning IPv4 addresses

After a few days of seemingly bizarre network errors from some, but not all, apps, I realized my phone wasn't getting an ipv4 address. After three calls with poor tech support bodies who didn't know what an ip address is, I tried Sprint's chat support. I was surprised when they promptly told me that all internet data is now ipv6. However, they said they could do a workaround for me.

Moral, ipv6 is coming. Google says it is at 18% worldwide, and 34% in the US. https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

88 points | by MaupitiBlue 2254 days ago

13 comments

  • subway 2254 days ago
    AFAIK, Sprint offers 464XLAT on their IPv6 network, the same as T-Mobile. This uses a CLAT on your side to translate IPv4 to IPv6, then a PLAT on the Sprint side to translate back from IPv6 to IPv4. Allowing IPv4-only apps to work over the carrier's NAT64/DNS64.

    It sounds like you might have a broken CLAT implementation.

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  • Aloha 2254 days ago
    I think your sprint rep sold you a line of bullshit - there was likely a configuration issue with your account.

    Sprint must have rolled out IPv6 in the last six months or so.

  • runjake 2254 days ago
    IPv6 is already here and has been for years. The vast majority of my org's Internet traffic is IPv6.

    Some of you are just straggling.

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    • justincormack 2254 days ago
      Thats very different to ipv6 only with some sort if 6to4. Many common things (github etc) still fail to have ipv6 addresses so you are reduced to some pseudo natv6 that works poorly.
  • wmf 2254 days ago
    T-Mobile also went more or less IPv6-only a few years ago.
  • Shelnutt2 2254 days ago
    Sprint has been IPV6 enable for several years. Some devices are/were duel stack, some devices IPv6 only with the 464XLAT.

    You can see the adoption of ipv6 enabled devices growing: http://www.worldipv6launch.org/apps/ipv6week/measurement/ima...

    All major providers ipv6 percentage can be see at http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/

  • russellbeattie 2254 days ago
    Interesting... What were the errors and what was the workaround? Do they have some sort of 6to4 router that wasn't working?
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    • cesarb 2254 days ago
      If the errors were "from some, but not all, apps", my first guess would be that these particular apps either don't understand IPv6 addresses, or ask the DNS only for IPv4 addresses. Both causes would stop NAT64/DNS64 or similar from working. The other apps which kept working probably can use IPv6 just fine, even if their servers are IPv4-only. The "workaround for him" was probably adding him back to the CGNAT, so that the outdated apps could see and use an IPv4 address.

      That kind of workaround won't be there forever; if they're starting to move phones to IPv6-only (with NAT64/DNS64 or similar), they are probably planning to turn off the CGNAT sooner or later.

    • andrewf 2254 days ago
      That'd be an interesting take on Carrier-grade NAT. The approach I'm familiar gives phones a non-routable IPv4 address to get to the carrier's NAT gateway, but I can imagine shenanigans with some combination of 6to4, phone settings and/or DNS.

      Anyone seen such a setup in the wild? I'm interested in the errors OP saw.. was it just niche non-HTTP(S) access which broke, or all websites without an AAAA record?

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      • zokier 2254 days ago
        Have you seen 464XLAT?
  • dx034 2254 days ago
    Does anyone know why ipv6 usage is significantly higher on Saturdays than other days for Google? They record a difference of ~3% which is a lot of traffic. Is this due to different browsing patterns of countries with high adoption vs. low adoption?

    https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

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    • spystath 2254 days ago
      I would guess residential connections are more likely to be IPv6 enabled. Corporate networks move slowly. In our organisation they actually removed IPv6, go figure!
  • cypherpunks01 2254 days ago
    All my Verizon android phones have been on ipv6 addresses for years, I think? What is the status of other major carriers?
  • api 2254 days ago
    Good. Kill it.
  • edwhitesell 2254 days ago
    I'm IPv4 only at the moment, though I have sometimes seen both in various markets across the US.
  • gsich 2254 days ago
    If they sell you an "internet access", tell them that without a global reachable IPv4 (and IPv6) it's not an internet access. Then go to another provider.
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    • xenadu02 2254 days ago
      IANA is out of IPv4 addresses. So is ARIN, APNIC, RIPE, and LACNIC. AfriNIC has less than one /8 left. If you attempt to start a new ISP today you will have a difficult time getting IPv4 addresses.

      The days of being able to demand an IPv4 address are rapidly coming to a close.

      Deal with it.

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      • gsich 2253 days ago
        I am not talking about new ISPs, but already existing ones.
    • freehunter 2254 days ago
      If you bought an app that needs Internet connectivity and can't work on IPv6, tell them that's not an Internet-connected app. And then demand a refund.

      Normal software will gracefully handle IPv6, demand nothing less.

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      • gsich 2253 days ago
        Also true.
    • jdamon96 2254 days ago
      I'm a bit of a rookie when it comes to understanding differences between IPv4 and IPv6.. can you explain to me what you mean by this comment?
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      • vorpalhex 2254 days ago
        IPv4 and IPv6 are different underlying protocols that both carry services like HTTP. IPv4 is older, and uses what you likely think of as "standard" IP address (192.168.1.1). IPv6 uses longer hexadecimal addresses.

        IPv4 is due to run out of possible addresses and has been this way for a long time. However this has been consistently avoided by NATing, essentially hiding multiple devices behind a single router.

        IPv6 makes many more addresses available and solves this problem. However many data centers, online services, and even popular applications fail to correctly work nicely with IPv6 only users. Since the IPv4 exhaustion has been going on for a while, most developers don't consider it a concern when designing new services.

      • nathanaldensr 2254 days ago
        The difference is it's a totally different protocol. I'd be willing to guess that most servers on the internet only listen on the IPv4 protocol, which means, effectively, those servers are unavailable to you.
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        • jandrese 2254 days ago
          If they went IPv6 only and didn't implement NAT64 at the same time, then someone is going to be fired--probably the CEO.

          Mobile users won't notice because their IPv4 addresses were NATted anyway, and the phone stacks make it harder for app developers to screw up the v6 support. The v6 switchover should be mostly invisible to the users.

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          • stevenAthompson 2254 days ago
            Very true. Verizon has been 6 only for ages, but they use NAT64 so most non-nerds never noticed.

            I believe that at the time of the rollout they were the largest IP6 network on the planet. They may still be.

            It works because smartphone users don't have the same needs as home and business users. There aren't a ton of smartphone users demanding reachable IPv4 addresses in the first place, and the ones who might want them are probably smart enough to figure out how to use IPv6 instead.

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            • jandrese 2254 days ago
              I can't imagine there is much demand for people running internet servers off of their phone over the cell network.
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              • stevenAthompson 2254 days ago
                You might be surprised. For instance, almost every emergency vehicle has a 4G modem of some sort in it now. Also, there are tons of vending machines and assorted manufacturing or mining equipment that use similar devices.

                Often it's nice to be able to reach out to those devices and check the location, status, or whatever instead of waiting for the device to check in with you.

                For those purposes though IPv6 is fine... as long as you know what you're doing with IPv6.

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                • dx034 2254 days ago
                  Doesn't that decrease security? NAT plays a big role in anonymising users and providing some basic security. If every device has their own ipv6 address, scanning devices for vulnerabilities will be much easier.

                  Having secure devices is obviously the better solution but will never happen. That 10 year old vending machine won't get an update anytime soon and hiding it from the outer world could be the best way to prevent it being part of a botnet.

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                  • gsich 2253 days ago
                    Why? Just because you have a global address? This does not mean that all inbound connections are open.

                    Also scanning IPv6 is not that easy as it is in v4.

        • gsich 2253 days ago
          I wouldn't say it's a totally different protocol. It is essentially still the same, with longer addresses.
        • yorby 2254 days ago
          Don't they bridge the traffic from ipv4 to ipv6 to make sure that everything is available?
  • youseecomrade 2254 days ago
    ipv6 has any impact on privacy? (VPNs aside)

    my ipv4 changes every 24 hours, what if my ISP tries to pin a fixed ipv6 on me since they are "unlimited"?

    I hope I can also stay under NAT, I don't understand the concept perfectly but it's nice to have this extra indirect protection at home

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    • mgbmtl 2254 days ago
      There are plenty of other ways to track you. This is a really old argument (and is off-topic).
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      • dx034 2254 days ago
        But you can prevent all other ways. IP tracking doesn't work well currently, the number of users sharing one IP can be significant. Other means of tracking can be disabled with addins and by using common configurations (for browser fingerprints). Once you start assigning one static ip per device, there's nothing a user can do to prevent being tracked constantly.
    • SAI_Peregrinus 2254 days ago
      FYI you don't need NAT if you have a firewall, since the firewall can provide identical protection while being harder to bypass. Pretty much every home router can act as a firewall, but most won't by default.
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      • voltagex_ 2254 days ago
        A $300 "home" router I bought couldn't firewall IPv6 at all - people are going to get caught out by crap products.
  • chiph 2254 days ago
    Until recently, I was on Spectrum (née Time-Warner) service in Austin. I was running IPv6 on my gaming machine, and for general web browsing it was fine. But I was seeing ping times of over 2000 ms for World of Warcraft and it made the game unplayable. I switched back to IPv4 and got pings in the 50-70 ms range. This showed me that IPv6 is still in the "try it and see" stage and your latency will vary by application.