2011-11-24

IPv6 for consumers on DSL at last (Technicolor)

We have been working with suppliers of consumer routers. We have been happy to work with any, but only only these so far have been interested.


Comtrend:
Did not work properly with IPv6 and were not interested in fixing bugs (too busy). We did a trial and found problems. They were initially keen to supply to us, at sensible prices, but now say that we have to order thousands and it is not clear that they have fixed the issues yet either.


Billion:
High end router with wifi but expensive, IPv6 works. We have been shipping these at some expense since before World IPv6 Day. I think it was Billion who said they would not have IPv6 in the cheaper models, which made no sense. Well done for being the first supplier we found that worked.

Zyxel:
They are aiming at making a high end router first, but really are getting nowhere from what we can tell. They had meetings with us but seem to be ignoring us now.


Zoom:
They have an IPv6 router but it will not work on PPPoA, which makes no sense. The PPPoA or PPPoE aspect of the DSL link is irrelevant to the IPv6. Useless on most DSL lines that are PPPoA normally. They seemed confused that we would want IPv6 on PPPoA and wanted to know the business case?!?! We are confused as to why you wouldn't. They do talk to us, and they are looking in to it, but still moderately expensive. Hopefully they will have an offering soon though - well done for trying.


Technicolor: (TG582n)
Well, what can I say? They sent an engineer to our offices, by which I mean someone that can read packet dumps on the router correctly and understand them! We spent a day with him checking out their test code and making some tweaks our end as well and we got it working. They have one of our lines in their offices and have been testing. They have been working with us and proving new code as we find issues. We have customers testing these routers and are now shipping the IPv6 software. The routers are small, they have wifi, and cheap enough to be our standard "free with the service" router.

So, Technicolor it is - our new standard IPv6 router and it even has WiFi.


Now, I would stress, we have been working with Technicolor largely because of who we are and the fact we (as FireBrick) make the LNS end as well. This meant that we were working on the DHCPv6 and RA packets necessary at a low level to make this work. At present they do not have a release for general purchase, but we expect that is only a few weeks away, so please (other ISPs) don't give them too much hassle just yet :-)

Given that RIPE expect to run out or IPv4s next year UK ISPs need to get their act together and start making IPv6 standard. A sensibly priced consumer DSL router with IPv6 as standard will help a lot. Well done Technicolor.

18 comments:

  1. Are these available to buy now from http://aaisp.net.uk/? If I buy one now will I be able to update it as new firmware is released? Do they have any firewalling features?

    Well done at getting IPv6 consumer kit available, that's another significant step towards better broadband in the UK.

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  2. Yes, but please for the next day or two put a note saying you are after the IPv6 code as I am not sure we have the sales teams fully up to speed. Upgrades will be possible as well, and we are working on ways to make that simple as well, but that is a week or so away.

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  3. Congrats to both you and T on this a interesting point is that it says it will take ftp upto 100mb so does that mean it has a 100mb ethernet wan port and ipv6 for ~£39 ?!

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  4. Err, has 100M ports so will do WAN (i.e. FTTC/FTTP) at 100M, and does IPv6, yes. And we charge £40.

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  5. Sure but the clarification is that many routers will not allow a wan connection to be set from a 100mb lan port but its great that this can i assume the hardware is capable of forwarding 100mb line-rate?

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  6. I can confirm it works on FTTP at 100M down and does IPv6. It took less than 5 mins to unpack, connect, configure and then "just worked". Wireless appears to be good, everything has connected without problems. Really impressed.

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  7. Not tested that, but don't see why not.

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  8. The CLI on the technicolor routers is surprisingly powerful for a SOHO box.

    Had an old (Thompson)780wl and even that was able to be re-configured to route out of the Ethernet, used to use it as a SIP ATA.

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  9. Does it have WOL over internet? Most useful for kicking remoter servers into life...

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  10. Are you happy to configure a Billion router for a customer?
    for ipv6 on two lines?

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  11. Err, a billon would be one line. Two billions for two lines... But we can configure them?

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  12. I was uncertain if the Billion had two wan i/fs or one. (Juniper and I think Draytek make devices with two i/fs, if memory serves)

    I'll try and phrase that better. 1) Are AA willing to configure routers for existing customers (charges apply)? 2) Including deployment in multi-line scenarios?

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  13. If buying a router we will configure it. Not sure to be honest if two WAN ports, but we can try that if you want. We also do chargeable work (e.g. 30 minutes config) if you need. And multi-line is something we do as standard and we are happy to do a muilti-line config (as one or two routers as needed).

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  14. I ask because one AAISP customer is an old systems' programmer who is in poor health and currently too ill to configure a router.

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  15. I am sure the support guys can help.

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  16. Would Aaisp do config work chargeable per hour on Juniper dual-DSL router config (even though you don't sell them of course), since the particular Old C Programmer in Question has a top end Juniper device lying around with 2 DSL PIMs in it? (their devices being IPV6-speaking since umpteen yrs back.)

    (Of course provided device and docs shipped to AAISP premises.)

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  17. Just call the support guys and discuss it...

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