Internode rolls out IPv6 to customers

Australian internet service provider (ISP) Internode has announced that from this week, all its customers now have the option of being assigned a range of IPv6 addresses for their use.

Each user on the internet is assigned a unique numerical internet protocol (IP) address that identifies the device. However thanks to the growing popularity of mobile devices and the massive uptake of computers across the world, global allocations of the IPv4 standard addresses are almost gone.

IPv4′s successor, IPv6, is the way of the future using 128-bit addresses as opposed to IPv4′s 32-bit address allocations. However many organisations have so far resisted a push to change to the newer addressing scheme — which allows for many, many more addresses than IPv4 — because of the cost and changes needed as a result of IPv6-incompatible network devices.

However after trialling the IPv6 rollout over the past several years for select ADSL customers, Internode says it’s now ready to be the first Australian ISP to roll out support of the standard to all its customers for customers on both their ADSL services and on the high-speed National Broadband Network currently being rolled out across Australia.

“We’ve been deploying and testing IPv6 since 2008 and our experience with it is now unrivalled in Australia,” Hackett said. “In the future, we’ll move to an opt-out basis, but for now, any interested customer can activate IPv6 on their broadband service and be assigned a stable /56 prefix of IPv6 addresses.”

Any Internode ADSL customer can now opt-in to use IPv6 as well as IPv4 for their address allocation, with the company assigning each customer a range of IPv6 addresses for their use.

As a result of the roll-out, Internode is now also providing full support for customers choosing to use the newer allocation standard, with all routers sold by the ISP now IPv6 compatible. Other Australian ISPs are also slowly embracing IPv6, with Telstra announcing earlier in the year that it has now begun a phased rollout of IPv6.

In a statement made at the time, Telstra said it’ll utilise a dual-stack setup that’ll allow IPv4 and IPv6 to work together, as is standard. Most other major carriers have also tested IPv6 on their networks, but say for now they have no immediate plans to introduce support for customers.

Image credit: Mike Gieson, royalty free

8 COMMENTS

  1. A few errors:

    1) “customers now have the option of being assigned an IPv6 address” should be a range- you dont get one ipv6 address, you get a subnet of them (a/64 to the ppp interface plus a /56)

    2) “Any Internode ADSL customer can now opt-in to use IPv6 rather than IPv4 for their address allocation” no, its both- dual stack

    3) “assigning customers addresses from the /56 pool of IPv6 addresses” no, they GET a /56… Per customer.

    4) ” Telstra said it’ll utilise a unique dual-stack setup that’ll allow IPv4 and IPv6 to work together” this statement, unclarified, shouldge removed. Telstra might do something unique but dual stack isnt it! Internode is doing dual stack and so will everyone else deploying ipv6.

  2. Few things Renai:

    option of being assigned an IPv6 address.

    It’s a IPv6 prefix or “pool of addresses”. You aren’t assigned one.

    Any Internode ADSL customer can now opt-in to use IPv6 rather than IPv4 for their address allocation

    That should be “as well as” not “rather than”.

    unique dual-stack setup that’ll allow IPv4 and IPv6 to work together

    There is nothing unique about dual-stack. Dual-stack is in fact what Internode are doing. I would recommend rewording that.

  3. Hey guys, thanks for your corrections — I didn’t write this article but I don’t know that much about IPv6 myself, so I didn’t notice the errors. I have attempted to correct them — let me know if the article looks better now. Thanks for your help with this one — I really appreciate it!

    • Much better. The “as is standard” is redundant but that’s nitpicking. ;) I’ll tell your editor what a wonderful job you’ve done. Maybe you’ll get a raise!

    • That is better- but to be honest, the entire telstra comment says nothing. Telstra is looking at dual stack… So is everyone, as the next sentence covers.

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