ipv4 on mobile networks

Sat Oct 23 18:52:37 UTC 2021

On Sat, Oct 23, 2021 at 10:33 AM Michael Thomas <mike at mtcc.com> wrote:

> So I'm curious how the mobile operators deploying ipv6 to the handsets are
> dealing with ipv4. The simplest would be to get the phone a routable ipv4
> address, but that would seemingly exacerbate the reason they went to v6 in
> the first place.
>
First, consider that the 3  major cell carriers in the usa each have 100
million customers.  Also, consider they all now have a home broadband
angle. Where do 100 million ipv4 addresses come from?  Not rfc 1918, not
arin, … and we are just talking about customer ip addresses, not
considering towers, backend systems, call centers, retail ….

So the genesis of 464xlat / rfc 6877 is that ipv4 cannot go where we need
to go, the mobile architecture must be ipv6 to be comply with the e2e
principle and not constrain the scaling of the customers / edge. Other cell
carriers believe in operating many unique ipv4 networks … like a 10.0.0.0/8
per metro, but even that breaks down and cannot scale… and you end up with
proxies / nats / sbcs everywhere just to make internal apps like ims work,
which is a lot of state.

Are carriers NAT'ing somewhere along the line? If so, where? Like does the
> phone encapsulate v4 in 4-in-6? Or does the phone get a net 10 address and
> it gets NAT'd by the carrier?
>

~80% of traffic goes to fb, goog, yt, netflix, bing, o364, hbomax, apple
tv, … all of which are ipv6. So, only 20% of traffic requires nat, when you
have ipv6. I am hoping tiktoc and aws move to be default on for ipv6 soon.

The nats dont scale well and take the brunt of attacks, so services that
require nat suffer. Real shame, but they have a path to improve performance
by deploying ipv6.  Thats why performance driven companies use ipv6 (fb,
goog, akamai, …)

>
> It seems also for mobile carriers there is incentive for as much transit
> as possible for native v6 to the servers. Or is the deployment of v6 mainly
> within the carrier network itself and it's NAT'd somewhere?
>
> Basically what does a typical v6/v4 architecture look like for a mobile
> carrier these days?
>
> Mike
>
>
> On 10/23/21 8:13 AM, Brian Johnson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Oct 23, 2021, at 8:30 AM, Ca By <cb.list6 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 87% of mobiles in the usa are ipv6
>
> https://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/
>
>
>
> Agreed. When they have to connect to an IPv4 only host, they do some type
> of AFTR. These devices have never known a world outside of this situation.
> That is a major difference.
>
>
>
>
>
>> --
>> Bryan Fields
>>
>> 727-409-1194 - Voice
>> http://bryanfields.net
>
>
>
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