I started my career doing cable modem support at Adelphia. I took countless calls like that. Hundreds of calls a week explaining to people that the button on top of their Surfboard did in fact turn the internet off. That 'wireless internet' didn't mean you could unplug the coax from the back. That yes, I understand you have a generator at your house sir, but that hurricane that is flattening everything in your county also took out our infrastructure. ( Hello , Palm Beach County. ) I'm well aware of the borderline crackhead support calls that come in to an ISP.
For most problems, V6 will just be another random thing that someone mentions that has nothing to do with the actual issue. Your support agents still have to work the problem the same way, taking the same amount of time. There could be some problems that are V6 specific that your support teams will have to diagnose. Those are new, possibly new costs. ( Practically probably just slightly longer wait times for other customers. ) You've made a business decision that you don't want to pay for that. Ok. Just call it what it is. On Tue, Dec 2, 2025 at 1:41 PM Josh Luthman <[email protected]> wrote: > Because we would get things like "why is my IP address super long, I can't > play Xbox now" or "my computer says it is IPv6 enabled, does that mean > someone hacked me?" > > I manage the entire thing and let me give you an example of a ticket from > this morning. The customer called in and said they unplugged some things > and moved stuff around the house. Since then their internet/phone > (landline) has not been working. CSR asked if device was plugged in to > power. It was not. Customer plugged it in. > > You have to realize the people we're dealing with on this topic. We get > the calls for anything internet related at all because people don't use > their brain to connect the situation of unplugging the internet company's > box from power and it not working. I wrote a script that takes all > incoming calls and scans the customer's device to see if it has dying gasp > and then posts to Slack. That post comes up for 20% of our calls - people > without power or unplugging it. > > On Tue, Dec 2, 2025 at 1:35 PM Tom Beecher <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I did. I'm looking at it from the perspective of managing tier 1 >>> customer support issues through the tick box of enable IPv6 and managing >>> their subnets. Implementation for me doesn't stop once it's enabled on the >>> router. >> >> >> Not picking on you specifically here, but it's generally funny to hear >> "none of my users ask for V6" , then "my support will be run over with V6 >> setup questions". :) >> >> >> >> >> On Mon, Dec 1, 2025 at 3:09 PM Josh Luthman <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> >Read my entire message please. That statement was speaking to the >>> implementation issues. >>> >>> I did. I'm looking at it from the perspective of managing tier 1 >>> customer support issues through the tick box of enable IPv6 and managing >>> their subnets. Implementation for me doesn't stop once it's enabled on the >>> router. >>> >>> On Mon, Dec 1, 2025 at 2:48 PM Tom Beecher <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> That's absolutely not true. Tier 1 support will have to deal with v6 >>>>> issues. Customers will have additional issues due to IPv6. Absolutely >>>>> more than a v4 only network (today, not speaking for the future). >>>> >>>> >>>> Read my entire message please. That statement was speaking to the >>>> implementation issues. >>>> >>>> I addressed (separately) the support aspects. Are there cases where v6 >>>> specifically causes customer issues? Yes. Are those cases exceedingly rare >>>> these days? Yes. While things happen, the vast majority of user facing >>>> stuff these days follows Happy Eyeballs pretty good, and Just Works when >>>> you have both 4 and 6 available. >>>> >>>> On Mon, Dec 1, 2025 at 2:28 PM Josh Luthman via NANOG < >>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >Yes there can be some things to shake out to implement it, but once >>>>> those >>>>> are done, they're done. >>>>> >>>>> That's absolutely not true. Tier 1 support will have to deal with v6 >>>>> issues. Customers will have additional issues due to IPv6. Absolutely >>>>> more than a v4 only network (today, not speaking for the future). >>>>> >>>>> >What are your end users talking to that is IPv4-only these days, >>>>> because >>>>> it’s not much pretty much all the e-mail/cloud/office/docs things are >>>>> IPv6 >>>>> these days, and yeah it’s harder to remember 2620:fe::fe than 9.9.9.9 >>>>> but >>>>> who besides a few of us still have phone numbers memorized either these >>>>> days? >>>>> >>>>> Little websites named after a forest and an auction website for old >>>>> junk >>>>> (Amazon and Ebay). >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Dec 1, 2025 at 2:23 PM Jared Mauch via NANOG < >>>>> [email protected]> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > > On Dec 1, 2025, at 2:06 PM, Tom Beecher via NANOG < >>>>> [email protected]> >>>>> > wrote: >>>>> > > >>>>> > >> >>>>> > >>> this thread has done nothing except rehash the same viewpoints >>>>> that get >>>>> > >> discussed ad nauseam for the last however many years. >>>>> > >> >>>>> > >> I'm not sure if you just don't see it or you're being funny. >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > It's a correct statement. >>>>> > > >>>>> > > "IPv6 doesn't work" : Google's stats show that just shy of 50% of >>>>> all >>>>> > their >>>>> > > traffic is native V6. Most of the largest CDNs will give you >>>>> similar >>>>> > > answers. Yes there can be some things to shake out to implement >>>>> it, but >>>>> > > once those are done, they're done. >>>>> > > >>>>> > > "My customers don't ask for it." : Customers don't ask for IPv4. >>>>> They >>>>> > don't >>>>> > > ask for NAT/CGNAT either. But you do those things I'm sure, >>>>> because as >>>>> > you >>>>> > > said, they just want things to work. >>>>> > > >>>>> > > The answer is really money. You made a business decision not to >>>>> incur the >>>>> > > hardware/software/support costs to implement V6 for your customers. >>>>> > That's >>>>> > > fine, no shame in that. Maybe that will never be a problem for you, >>>>> > maybe >>>>> > > someday it will and it will cost you. Who knows. >>>>> > > >>>>> > > But just be honest and call it what it is, instead of half baked >>>>> > statements >>>>> > > that have been repeated for decades. >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > Exactly. >>>>> > >>>>> > Talking to friends at companies that do social networking stuff >>>>> pretty >>>>> > much all their traffic (over 90%) is from mobile devices, and when I >>>>> look >>>>> > at the big 3 mobile networks in the US they all do IPv6. Their >>>>> MVNO’s >>>>> > might vary, but the main networks do IPv6. >>>>> > >>>>> > I find myself having to tether off their networks when I’m on IPv4 >>>>> only >>>>> > networks to access things like my hypervisors and other assets that >>>>> are >>>>> > IPv6-only because they have superior networking these days. >>>>> > >>>>> > If you are doing IPv4-only, you are only harming yourself >>>>> long-term. The >>>>> > solutions are there for all the things you think you will >>>>> encounter. For >>>>> > the most part it’s 96 more bits, no magic. >>>>> > >>>>> > Yes there are a few nuances to be aware of, like proxy-arp saves a >>>>> lot of >>>>> > people when they do kinky things in IPv4 and proxy-NDP is there, but >>>>> not in >>>>> > the same way on many platforms. One of the last big hurdles out >>>>> there was >>>>> > IPv6 support for VTEP in FRR in my mind and that gap was recently >>>>> closed. >>>>> > >>>>> > I also happen to think that Apple got it wrong when they rolled >>>>> private >>>>> > relay out, they kept the inbound tunnel protocol to outbound proxy >>>>> behavior >>>>> > on the same address family when they could have upgraded it on the >>>>> outbound >>>>> > side to IPv6 which would have closed the gap even more. >>>>> > >>>>> > What are your end users talking to that is IPv4-only these days, >>>>> because >>>>> > it’s not much pretty much all the e-mail/cloud/office/docs things >>>>> are IPv6 >>>>> > these days, and yeah it’s harder to remember 2620:fe::fe than >>>>> 9.9.9.9 but >>>>> > who besides a few of us still have phone numbers memorized either >>>>> these >>>>> > days? >>>>> > >>>>> > Do you need a ton of IPv4 space? Not really, but if you’re a cable >>>>> > company like RCN, yeah you’re not doing any upgrades, but if you are >>>>> > leaving assets on IPv4 just because you are leaving them on IPv4, >>>>> then at >>>>> > some point you are just wasting money. >>>>> > >>>>> > Send it to me and Tom so we can buy more hockey tickets. >>>>> > >>>>> > - Jared >>>>> > _______________________________________________ >>>>> > NANOG mailing list >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/NMBYWMNZ7ROM6WMGFJ7IAYLKPFQG3BUO/ >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> NANOG mailing list >>>>> >>>>> https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/5M7ANDNUNQRIODBM5B6IGSH3P4XPSBYJ/ >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/PGZFA6CJQ2SW3WSOQZDB3HXO3KQBRWCT/
