Gigahub and IPv6

[SteveD]

In early October I switched from a third party internet provider that was using Bell’s copper lines to Fibe 3.0. When I made that switch I had issues with a lot of devices on my network, I used my own router using PPPoE pass through, so other than a change in external IP, things remained the same internally. I realized that I wasn’t getting an IPv6 address as part of the connection. 

i bypassed my equipment and connected directly to the Gigahub and couldn’t find any hint of configuration for IPv6 and my laptop wasn’t getting an IPv6 address. 

I called support ad the tech that I spoke to indicated that the next version of the firmware for the Gigahub would support IPv6 and I wanted to get an update. Do we have an ETA for IPv6 on the Gigahub?

[BellNick · Accepted solution]

Hi there @SteveD, 
Thanks for your post and welcome to the Bell Community.

Currently at this time we do not support IPv6 through residential service. 

[SteveD]

Sorry, just had to check my calendar, the initial RFCs for IPv6 came out in the 1990s, it is currently 2022.

Was the tech that I was speaking to mis-informed or did he straight up lie to me to get me off the phone?

Is there a timeline for when Bell will support IPv6 on their residential services?

[hackman]

You can create a tunnel from a device behind the gigahub to He.net via their service tunnelbroker.net

[snowblower]

Have you tried a Huuricane Electric ipv6 tunnel?  I'm trying, and on two systems both transmit but get no reply.  I'm not sure what the problem is yet, but it's startign to look like Bell is blocking protocol 41 IP messages.

[SteveD]

I tried and had some success, but in retrospect it was slow and laggy. However I tried to run the HE IPv6 tunnel on a box that has a VPN so it is total possible that running over the VPN allowed it to work, but at the same time caused the delay. I’ll have to retest on a different box. 

[snowblower]

I finally got it working. The key was to use a separate router and connect to the GigaHub using a ppoe connection. That provided me with a separate IP address that was pingable. I could never get a ping through the GigaHub before, and it might have been blocking other stuff (despite all my experiementing with DMS and Advanced DMZ.

[snowblower]

I wrote up a how-to for setting up a ipv6 tunnel router that will work on Bell's fiber network with a GigaHub:

https://jptrainor.github.io/ipv6/2023/05/16/ipv6-tunnel-on-bell-fibre.html

... it's the best solution I could come up with as a hold-over until Bell joins the rest of us in the 21st century and supports IPv6.

[SteveD]

I tried this, got the basics working, but too much random stuff is happening to make it worth it.

streaming services are misbehaving, Google searches are constantly asking me to prove that I’m not a bot, etc

I had a rep from Rogers come to my door the other day, seriously considering switching once my introductory price with Bell is gone. 

[snowblower]

Yes, I experienced google asking me if I'm a bot when I use the HE tunnel. I only use it occasionally to test some software where IPV6 is a must have, so it's not a problem. I have a dedicated sub-network that I connect to when I need IPV6.  The rest of the time I use Bell's vanilla IPV4. If I needed IPV6 day to day then Bell would not be an option as an ISP.  Hopefully Bell join the 21st century soon. I imagine that every peice of equipment that runs their network already supports it and all they need to do is configure it and turn it on.

[SteveD]

I quickly looked into VPNs with IPv6 support and found one that seems to offer 10GB of traffic a month for free, so I might try to add this to my network using a separate VLAN/SSID.

Also you comment about Bell joining the 21st century is a bit strange, the first RFCs for IPv6 came out in the 20th century, so I would consider this them joining the 20th century.

[snowblower]

I give them a break until 2017 when the draft standard was finally ratified.  After that, they are being complacent and living in the past. IMO

[Zadigre]

I seriously do not understand why IPv6 is not already available.

I currently have Five 3.0... and considering switching to a "slower" cable provider to get IPv6. I need IPv6 to access and test some part of our network when I work from home. Using a tunnel may work... but it's definitely not optimal. 

[iteoc]

I have a number of Bell Fibe TV boxes and was very surprised to learn that each of these TV Android boxes had for its ID what looks like a ipv6 address … can anyone from Bell confirm this?

[Zadigre]

can you give an example of what you are seeing?
TVs are on their own vlan/network... so I'm not really surprised to see they may be using IPv6 internally.