dane wrote:richardjotter wrote:I actually cancelled my free trial because of the absence of native IPv6. (and the weird EERO router)
I'll probably come back once you have it running.
Why? What would be the difference with IPv6?
For me there are three main categories of reasons why I'm anxious to see Sonic support native IPv6.
First is
practical / technical. There are use cases these days for which IPv6 is a requirement. More are popping up all the time. I work on networking software and infrastructure for a living. Modern software and modern infrastructure supports IPv6; I need to be able to test and develop in these environments. I'm the only member of my immediate team without an IPv6-capable ISP. I have to maintain IPv6 tunnels instead of getting it natively like everyone else.
There are also infrastructure solutions coming online which now charge extra for IPv4 addresses given their increasing scarcity / cost. For hobby projects, the fact that I don't have native IPv6 means I have to maintain a tunnel, or pay an extra monthly charge to rent an IPv4 address.
IPv6 also drastically simplifies the process of peer-to-peer communication. It's great for accessing resources without having to deal with NAT, port forwarding, hole punching, STUN, or other workarounds to traverse IPv4-specific roadblocks.
The cost of IPv4 addresses is continuing to rise. I can get my own IPv6 allocation for minimal administrative cost, but buying a /24 of IPv4 addresses currently costs about $14k on the open market. As long as eyeball networks like Sonic don't support IPv6, we're all stuck participating in this escalating / inflationary hellscape of artificial scarcity.
The second category is
good net citizenship. For content providers to move to IPv6, eyeball networks (like Sonic) need to support it. For eyeball networks (like Sonic) to bother supporting it, there needs to be some compelling content that requires it. This chicken-and-egg problem means that we're all stuck with IPv4 until someone steps up to break the cycle. Other eyeball networks are stepping up, either via customer pressure, government mandate, or plain old good net citizenship.
We all want IPv6 to work; it just takes effort by infrastructure providers, even if there's no immediate payout, in order to get there. I'm a Sonic customer because I think Sonic is a good net citizen with regards to infrastructure, privacy, support, and business ethics. I know that Sonic spends extra time and attention vs. other ISPs in order to get this stuff right, and it shows. I feel the same way about IPv6 -- I'd love to support an ISP that is helping push the industry forward, and that includes proactively supporting next-gen features like IPv6 even when the immediate payback is not obvious.
The third and final category is
peer benchmarking. Put simply -- "everyone else is doing it". Even if I can't make an argument that it's
inherently good to support IPv6, the fact is that the majority of major content and eyeball networks now support it.
On the content side, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, AWS, GCP, Azure, Cloudflare, Fastly, Netflix, and Akamai all support and encourage IPv6 adoption.
On the ISP side, I support dozens of end user networks throughout the US, and Sonic is the
only ISP I work with at this point that doesn't yet provide native IPv6. This includes a handful of residential and commercial ISPs. I support people on Comcast, Monkeybrains, Webpass, Charter, AT&T, Cogent, Lumen, and Verizon. Native IPv6 across the board! Except for Sonic.
I hope this helps! I know it feels like a low priority because there's no immediate financial incentive, but a lot of really exciting stuff is just around the corner which relies on getting as many networks as possible upgraded. When the time is right, I'm an eager beta tester who will be happy to help you roll it out smoothly.
Thanks!