Comcast6.net

IPv6 Trial News and Information:

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Comcast Testing Our IPv6-Enabled SMTP Email Server
Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Our IPv6 trials now include not just IPv6-enabled networks and websites, but also SMTP mail servers. We have just started testing outbound mail servers with IPv6 from our current vendor, Cloudmark, and hope to learn more about how to prepare our email platform for IPv6. Participation is limited to our technical trial participants for now.

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Test Your Readiness for World IPv6 Day
Friday, May 20, 2011

World IPv6 Day begins the evening of June 7th in the U.S., to test the readiness of the Internet to move to IPv6. Popular sites like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo will be testing that day. When they do so, the overwhelming majority of our customers should not experience any difficulty accessing those and other participating sites. Nevertheless, a small fraction of our customers may experience problems due to issues with your computer or home network (estimated at roughly 0.05% of users worldwide). So please take a moment to run a simple test to see if your computer and home network is ready.

All you need to do in order to test your readiness is visit our special test website at http://test-ipv6.comcast.net and in less than a minute the results will tell you if there are any items that you need to fix. Be sure you run this from each computer in your home, especially older computers. If you need help fixing any issues, please visit our customer forums.

Comcast to Participate in World IPv6 Day
Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Comcast and the Internet Society today announced that Comcast will participate in World IPv6 Day on June 8, 2011. We anticipate having our IPv6 trial users participate in this event, which will give them the opportunity to access many more sites natively over IPv6. In addition, we plan to have more of our websites available over IPv6 (the current list of IPv6-ready sites is here).

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6RD Deactivation Planned
Tuesday, February 15, 2011

On June 30, 2010, we activated 6RD border relays in our network as part of our testing of “Phase 1� of the expected transition to IPv6 (see figure below). On the one year anniversary of this activation, June 30, 2011, these 6RD border relays will be turned off, as they are no longer needed given the advanced state of our IPv6 testing and our Native Dual Stack strategy. Trial users testing 6RD can find directions on what to do next on our trial web forum. This date will of course enable our 6RD trial users to participate in World IPv6 Day on June 8, 2011. The other transition mechanism we are testing is 6to4, for which we will assess future support at a later time.

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Comcast's First IPv6 Native Dual Stack Over DOCSIS Users Activated!
Monday, January 31, 2011

As noted here in our blog, we are very excited to announce that Comcast has successfully activated our first group of trial users for IPv6 Native Dual Stack operation. These are the first Native Dual-Stack users activated in a production DOCSIS network in North America. Leveraging our state-of-the-art, production DOCSIS 3.0 network, these users can now access content and services natively over both IPv6 and IPv4. This means users do not need to use any IPv6 or IPv4 tunneling, translating, or NAT solutions; they can access IPv6 and IPv4 directly at high-speed, in an unencumbered fashion. This is a tremendous milestone for Comcast, cable operators, and the Internet community at large, and it is a critical milestone in our many years of work to prepare IPv6 to work seamlessly in a residential broadband Internet network. Each user has been delegated a /64 block of approximately 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (18 quintillion) unique IPv6 addresses. We anticipate expanding our IPv6 Native Dual Stack trial in Colorado and in other areas in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned here for further updates.

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Keeping Track of Website Native Dual Stack Readiness
Tuesday, January 4, 2011

In 2011, we anticipate working to bring many of our websites to support native dual stack, so that they are accessible via IPv6. As a result, we'll be updating a list of sites that are IPv6-accessible here. That page will keep track of the mainstream sites that support IPv6, as opposed to specialized ones intended for testing.

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Comcast Makes Several Presentations at IETF 79
Wednesday, November 17, 2010

One of the goals of our trials was to take the time to share our experiences with others in the Internet community. We have been doing so on a regular basis and last week a number of people from our IPv6 team participated in the 79th meeting of the IETF. At that meeting, team members made presentations at the Technical Plenary on our IPv6 experiences, in the Softwires Working Group on our Dual-Stack Lite experiences, and in the DNS Operations Working Group, IPv6 Operations Working Group, and the Internet Area Working Group on IPv6 AAAA DNS Whitelisting.

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6to4 and 6RD Configuration Directions Posted
Monday, October 4, 2010

If you are on the Comcast network, you currently have been issued one or more IPv4 addresses. So if you'd like to try IPv6 you will need to tunnel IPv6 over IPv4, using a transition technology like 6to4 or 6RD. If you wish to try 6RD out, you can see the 6RD configuration instructions here. And if you wish to try 6to4 out, you can see the 6to4 configuration instructions here. Please note that in both cases, you will need to have a home gateway device with software that supports 6RD or 6to4, though if you have a compatible device you can use open source software we've released (see below).

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Comcast Donates Additional IPv6 Open Source Software
Friday, October 1, 2010

As noted here in our blog, Comcast has now released additional free open source software under GPLv2 that may help facilitate the industry's and end users' transition to IPv6. We are releasing home gateway device (a.k.a. home router) software, which you can find here on SourceForge. Configuration directions are available here. This open source implementation was developed in conjunction with Xavient Information Systems, using the OpenWrt platform.

While it is very important that home gateway devices to support native IPv6, particularly native dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously), devices may still need to handle situations where tunnel-based IPv6 transition technology would be used. Thus, these OpenWrt software extensions support cases where either IPv6 is tunneled over IPv4 using 6RD, or IPv4 is tunneled over IPv6 using Dual-Stack Lite (DS-Lite). In fact, this home gateway device software is one of two implementations used in Comcast's 6RD trial.

When this software uses 6RD, it tunnels to an 6RD Border Relay (6RD-BR). When this software uses DS-Lite, it tunnels to an Address Family Transition Router (AFTR), therefore communicating with AFTR software such as that which has been jointly developed with ISC. This figure shows where this software can assist, in the lifecycle of the IPv6 transition (click here for a larger version):

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Comcast Participates in Two IPv6 Workshops This Week
Tuesday, September 28, 2010

This is a busy week for IPv6 in North America. On Monday and Tuesday in New York City, some members of our IPv6 team participated in an IPv6 workshop organized by CableLabs, the NCTA, and the SCTE. In addition, on Tuesday, we participated in this workshop organized by the NTIA in Washington, D.C.

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6to4 Relays Activated
Tuesday, August 17, 2010

As we started our IPv6 trials, we began to observe an increase in 6to4 relay traffic. 6to4 is a transition mechanism built into some operating systems and home gateways. While it is not a transition technology that Comcast planned to invest in due to limitations related to performance, we did observe poor performance when 6to4 was used by our customers. In many cases, these customers were not even aware that 6to4 was enabled by default or that their device or operating system was attempting to use 6to4 to communicate with IPv6 resources on the Internet.

In most cases, we observed that 6to4-enabled operating systems and devices were attempting to use a 6to4 relay infrastructure hosted by a midwestern university. In order to improve the Internet experience for Comcast customers who are using 6to4, whether knowingly or not, we have decided to operate 6to4 relays on a temporary, trial basis.

Comcast has decided to deploy 6to4 relays in five locations around our network to improve performance and predictability, as compared to operating relays from a single location. These 6to4 relays are available via the standard 6to4 Anycast IP address, according to RFC 3068, which is 192.88.99.1. Devices attempting to use 6to4 within our network should automatically discover and utilize these new 6to4 relays, without end user intervention or configuration.

The first pair of these relays was activated today. We plan to activate the remaining three within the next seven to ten days. We plan to monitor the performance of the 6to4 relays, to measure any beneficial effects resulting from adding these elements to our network. As our IPv6 trials evolve and we develop our plans for 2011 and beyond, we will assess our plans to support 6to4 moving forward.

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Trial Closed to New Volunteers
Monday, August 16, 2010

We've had a great response from customers who have volunteered for our IPv6 trials, with over 7,000 volunteers so far, far exceeding our expectations. As a result, we no longer need additional volunteers and are thereforer no longer accepting new ones. If you are not able to participate in a trial directly, you can keep track of our latest IPv6 news and information here. And thank you for your continued interest!

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Comcast's 6RD Trial Has Started
Wednesday, June 30, 2010

We are pleased to announce that today, Wednesday June 30th, 2010, Comcast activated our first residential 6RD trial customer, who was located in Cambridge, MA.

In the coming weeks we expect to add several hundred trial customers in a wide range of locations in our network, since the 6RD trial is not geographically limited. 6RD trial customers can use their existing computers and cable modems, which may not support IPv6 directly. However, their home gateway devices have been upgraded to one of two different trial devices which support 6RD, enabling IPv6 packets to be encapsulated within IPv4 packets. The encapsulated packets are then sent to a 6RD Border Relay in the Comcast network which in turn forwards the traffic to the Internet over native IPv6.

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Comcast's First Native Dual-Stack Customer Activated!
Thursday, May 13, 2010

We are pleased to announce that yesterday, Wednesday, May 12, 2010, Comcast installed our very first native dual-stack trial customer. Native dual-stack means that the customer has native IPv6 and IPv4 addresses. The customer is using the Comcast Business Class Ethernet Dedicated Internet (EDI) Service, and is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. It seemed only fitting that our first native dual stack customer is in the San Francisco Bay Area, given the huge role that area has played in the computer and Internet industries. :-) In addition, we're pleased to lead first on IPv6 with our Comcast Business Class service, the fastest growing service area of the company.

The first ping of the customer's connection to validate connectivity occurred at roughly 4:55pm PDT (7:55pm EDT) on May 12, 2010. The first IPv6-enabled website tested from the customer site was the Comcast IPv6 Information Center (this site) at http://www.comcast6.net, first accessed at roughly 5:33pm PDT (8:33pm EDT).

The connections from customer networks using the Comcast Business Class Ethernet Dedicated Internet Service to Comcast are via Juniper and Cisco network elements, which have been configured, where applicable, to support IPv6. From that point customer IPv6 traffic is routed into our core network, which already supports IPv6 natively.

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Details for Trial #2: Native Dual-Stack for Cable Modem (DOCSIS) Customers
Thursday, April 22, 2010

This trial depends upon a Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) being upgraded to support IPv6. Two of our CMTS vendors, Cisco and Arris, have software ready for IPv6 testing on their CMTS platforms.* As such, our initial trial areas will be restricted to selected markets with Arris or Cisco CMTSes. We have selected the San Francisco / Bay Area market, Chicago market, and Philadelphia market for our initial trial areas. That does not mean that all customers in these areas will be able to trial IPv6, however. In each market, we are working to select a small number of CMTSes that will be upgraded, based on where our trial volunteers are located. We are working with trial volunteers in these areas to gather additional information to assist in finalizing which specific customers can participate.

Once trial users are selected, they may be sent a new Arris DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem if their existing device cannot support IPv6. In cases where customers have a home gateway device that meets the necessary IPv6 requirements, they may use that device in the trial. If their device does not meet the minimum IPv6 requirements and is not upgradable to add this support, we will be providing a home gateway. Initially, we will be using the Apple Airport Extreme, the NetGear WNR3500, and the NetGear WNR1000. We may use other home gateways later.

We anticipate beginning this trial in June, though that date is subject to change based upon the availability of the home gateways we will initially use, and upon the installation and operational readiness of the Arris and Cisco CMTS software.

* Note: We also use Motorola CMTSes. We believe Motorola intends to support IPv6 on their CMTS platform sometime in 2011, but that is not yet confirmed.

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Details for Trial #1: 6RD
Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Our 6RD trial does not involve issuing IPv6 addresses directly to customer premise equipment. As such, the trial does not need to be geographically bound based on where certain equipment has been upgraded. As a result, we will be selecting customers from all regions of the country to participate in the 6RD trial. We will initially begin with up to 50 customers to validate the functionality of the trial. We will then expand this to at least several hundred participants. Initially, we will use Linksys home gateways that will either be loaded with Linksys software or an alternative open source implementation (we will trial both), which are used at the customer premise. We may use other home gateway devices later.

Traffic destined for IPv6 hosts will be sent through a 6RD relay. Initially, this will go through Cisco routers which have specialized 6RD relay software installed on them. We may use other 6RD relays later.

We anticipate beginning this trial in June, though that date is subject to change based upon the availability of the home gateways we will initially use, and upon the installation and operational readiness of the infrastructure. We will be contacting our first round of potential 6RD trial users soon.

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Initial Trial Customers Selected for Trial #4: Native Dual-Stack for Business Class
Tuesday, April 20, 2010

We have selected our first group of business class customers who will participate in this trial. These will all be fiber-based Ethernet customers. We anticipate beginning this trial soon.

Initially, these customers will use IPv6 addresses provided by Comcast. The connections from customer networks to Comcast are via Juniper and Cisco network elements, which have been configured, where applicable, to support IPv6. From that point customer IPv6 traffic is routed into our core network, which already supports IPv6 natively.

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Comcast Trial User Portal Activated
Monday, April 19, 2010

Early this week, all volunteers will receive an email inviting them to officially signup for our various IPv6 trials. The email contains a link to our trial user website. Once the volunteer sets up an account, they will be asked to accept a trial user agreement. In order to help us finalize which trial a volunteer will qualify for, there will also be a user survey initially as well. Over time, this site will be used for surveys and providing more trial information. It also has a web forum for interacting with us and other trial users, among other features.

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Comcast to Participate in ISOC IPv6 Deployment Workshop
Friday, April 16, 2010

On Thursday, April 22, 2010, Comcast is participating in an IPv6 workshop organized by the Internet Society (ISOC). According to their agenda, they will discuss development of a base set of good and bad practices for IPv6 deployment, discuss concrete documentation of operational practices around the world, and give the less experienced opportunities for direct discussions with those who have more experience.

One of the topics we expect to discuss is so-called DNS whitelisting, which has been debated recently in the Internet community. You can find a short whitepaper here, which introduces the topic for discussion at the workshop. The agenda and all presentations from the workshop are here.

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Comcast Participates in ISOC IPv6 Panel Discussion
Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Today at the 77th meeting of the IETF, Comcast is participating in a panel discussion organized by the Internet Society (ISOC). The panel is focused on the increasing momentum behind global IPv6 deployments. To listen to a live webcast of the event, please visit this ISOC web page. You can check out our slides here. Discussion will be led by ISOC's Chief Internet Technology Officer, Leslie Daigle, and panelists include Geoff Huston, from APNIC, Jason Livingood, from Comcast, and David Temkin, from Netflix.

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General Trials Preparation Update
Monday, March 22, 2010

We have been extremely pleased with the positive reaction to our IPv6 trials, and especially that over 5,000 customers have volunteered to participate from all around the U.S. The map below gives you a sense for where those volunteers are located, and you can see that this represents geographically diverse interest in IPv6. We're using the location of volunteers to inform our decision-making on where different IPv6 trials will be conducted. You can expect more from us in the next few weeks.

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Comcast and ISC Donate IPv6 Open Source Software
Thursday, March 18, 2010

As noted here in our blog, Comcast and the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) have now released free open source software that may help facilitate the industry's transition to IPv6. We are releasing Address Family Transition Router (AFTR) software, which you can find now on ISC's website here. We believe AFTR software is a critical component of Dual-Stack Lite technology. This milestone represents the culmination of almost five years of joint IPv6 research and development by Comcast and ISC.

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IPv6 Trial Plans for 2010 Announced
Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Comcast has been a leader in IPv6 development for many years. Our leadership continues today with the announcement of a plan to conduct real, production-network trials of IPv6 technology this year. We encourage customers to sign up now to volunteer to participate in one of our trials.

The transition from IPv4 addresses to IPv6 addresses is a necessity, as the available pool of IPv4 addresses will at some point be exhausted for all Internet users. These trials will help Comcast to identify and solve any areas of difficulty involved in the transition to IPv6, and to determine what approach will be the easiest and most seamless to our customers. Comcast will continue to share what we learn with the Internet community, particularly with the IETF, for the benefit of other users of the Internet.

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IPv6 Trials - Timing and FAQs
Wednesday, January 27, 2010

2Q2010:

Trial #1 will evaluate tunneling IPv6 over IPv4, using "6RD" technology. 6RD is an open Internet standard developed in the IETF's Softwires working group. This trial enables us to explore how we may be able to provide production level IPv6 service to customers who have only been issued IPv4 addresses by the ISP network.

Trial #2 will evaluate a native Dual-Stack IPv6 deployment. We will test issuing both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to the customer premise. This trial will attempt to suit a variety of customer premise configurations, and will evolve over time as the customer premise equipment (CPE) support for IPv6 matures. Native, dual-stack is central to our IPv6 strategy and we expect that the native dual-stack solution will be a significant part of the IPv6 transition, enabling IPv6 technology to evolve globally while still being able to provide seamless services to the traditional IPv4 Internet.

3Q2010:

Trial #3 will evaluate tunneling IPv4 over IPv6, using "Dual-Stack Lite" technology (aka DS-Lite). DS-Lite is an open standard defined in the IETF's Softwires working group. DS-Lite will involve provisioning only an IPv6 address at the customer premise, and creating a IPv4 over IPv6 tunnel between the customer's home gateway and an Address Family Transition Router (AFTR) in our network. That AFTR enables sharing IPv4 addresses among DS-Lite IPv6 customers. DS-Lite can be seen as the mirror image of 6RD; 6RD enables IPv6 service to IPv4 customers, whereas DS-Lite enables IPv4 service to IPv6 customers. DS-Lite offers the ability to continue an IPv4 service when IPv4 addresses are no longer readily available or are otherwise constrained.

Trial #4 will evaluate how to deploy IPv6 to our Business Class customers, on a native Dual-Stack IPv6 basis.

Note: All dates are tentative and are subject to change. Also, trial dates have been set conservatively, which means that some trials may begin earlier than indicated above. As each trial begins, this site will be updated.

For detailed FAQs regarding these trials, please see our IPv6 Trial FAQs.

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