4510L & IPv6

[nsayer]

So, perhaps I'm counting my chickens before they hatch a little. After all, step 1 is for the MiFi not to get stuck when the connection goes dormant, really.

Still, since (so I've heard) Verizon has required all LTE devices to support IPv6, why isn't my MiFi advertising a prefix? I suppose the excuse is that it's easier to handle one downstream device for a USB modem than offer a prefix over a router. But it's not really a question of "if," but "when."

So, when?

[John_Getzke]

Hello,

Out of curiosity, where are you looking to view your prefix? 

What I know is that if you want your local IPv6 address you will have to enable an IPv6 connection on your computer first.  I remember I tested IPv6 on Win7 and was able to establish a connection a while back, but it wasnt an out of the box feature.  There were several steps that I needed to perform in order for my laptop to understand and allow a IPv6 connection.  Once I had everything enabled I was able to get an IPv6 address from my MiFi.  Actually, my MiFi was the only device I owned which was able to display an IPv6 address in IPConfig.  That covers the extent of my local IPv6 testing with this device.  Not sure if I was actually using the IPv6 address for routing, but I remember it was displaying before I moved onto another issue.

Public IPv6 addresses is another issue, perhaps that is what you are asking about here?

[John_Getzke]

Let me add to my previous post as more of my memories are restored.

The testing I did with the MiFi was for IPv6/v4 vpn tunnels.  I went through the tutorials on http://tunnelbroker.net/ and completed the simple configuration steps.  When everything was done I was able to establish an IPv6 connection to one of the listed servers through an IPv4 tunnel.  The MiFi was not providing me directly with an IPv6 address, although it did allow the communication to run through and complete the tunnel.

[nsayer]

Yes, public IPv6 addressing is what I'm talking about. I use a mac, so there's no extra steps required to get it working. Hook a mac up to a LAN that has router and prefix advertisements and the mac will just figure it out.

I have been using IPv6 for 10 years now, first on the old 6Bone, then with 6to4, and of late using tunnelbroker at home and native IPv6 on my VSP.

It would be nice to be able to communicate directly between my laptop and the machines at home behind my firewall natively with IPv6. In principle, since LTE devices are all supposed to support native IPv6 connectivity, the MiFi ought to perform prefix advertisement and as a result, all of my devices ought to get a globally routable IPv6 address.

I mean, that was the whole raison d'être of IPv6, n'est pas?

[John_Getzke]

Funny you should ask about Public IP's. 

http://www.evdoinfo.com/ has had two postings recently (Friday, Jan 27th 2012 and Monday, Jan 25th 2012) about VZW offering static IP's.  There is no mention about IPv6 addresses but perhaps you could ask them if they are available.  I'd suggest going to 3G store first since thier tech support is a little better in my experience.

You might be able to give VZW a call and see if you can purchase what you need.  The fee looks to be pretty steep at $500.00 but you should be able to leverage that same IP across several devices.

Otherwise IPv6 is scheduled to launch on June 6th 2012.  All service providers are required to fully support IPv6 at that time.  It should be reasonable to assume that everything will become more open and available at that time.

http://www.worldipv6day.org/

[nsayer]

I don't need static addresses. That is, I don't mind if they change every time I connect.

World IPv6 day isn't a "launch date" or anything of the sort. It's an awareness event, sort of like pink ribbons for breast cancer. IPv6 is available *now*. Has been, in fact, for over 10 years now. I use it daily. I'd like to be able to use it on my MiFi. Given that Verizon has said out loud that it expects LTE devices to support IPv6, I'd say that someone didn't get the memo.

P.s. Here's another proof point.

[John_Getzke]

Those articles are interesting, but they may be a bit old as they date from Feb 2011 or earlier. Not sure what the one blogger did to achieve his screenshot.  It was most likely from a different device than the MiFi.  I signed into my old Tunnelbroker userID and ran the same tool from my MiFi and WinXP laptop for the following results:

Have you tried contacting VZW about this question yet?  I'd be interested to know if there was a way to enable a pure IPv6 address with this device too.  My guess is that VZW may have mentioned in the past that IPv6 is supported on LTE devices, but they might not be trained on how to use it or configure it. 

[nsayer]

I'm fairly sure that to get the screenshot he did, the blogger connected a USB LTE device up to his computer and it gave him a native IPv6 address.

I'm sure he didn't use a MiFi, because I'm using a MiFi, and it ain't doing it. That's why I posed the question to begin with - to ask when this functionality would be available to the MiFi as it is to other Verizon LTE devices.

I haven't tried asking Verizon, because I am 99 44/100 % sure if that the people to whom I have access will give at *best* a nonsense answer. I figure asking here, I am more likely to get the attention of anyone - inside or out of VZW - who has a clue at all about what IPv6 is.

[John_Getzke]

Well your last paragraph was accurate.  I tried contacting VZW to refresh myself on my own MiFi and learned no more than what we have already shared here. 

The rep did mention that he could recall back to the last "IPv6 day" and said he noticed across many of his devices that they automatically provided an IPv6 address.  Who knows if we were on the same page or if he was making it up.  Anyways, there is some hope that the MiFi may automatically update itself once VZW decides to start fully embracing IPv6.  He did not have any more info to share on the subject beyond that.  If its not in the maual, or within a short google search then 1st level isn't going to be able to find it.  I'm under the impression that the components are in place, VZW simply has not flipped the switch for this particular device. 

Too bad we still do not have a date tho : (  It would be nice to know when to expect a change like that.

[cdmoomaw]

From what I can tell, the MiFi has the capacity to use ipv6 from itself to the internet (thus it is ipv6 capable) but it is ipv4 only on the WiFi end. This would explain why ipv6 is available on USB devices, but not MiFi.

~ Chris