[AusNOG] Telstra IPv6 Wireless Enablement

[Brad Peczka]

This is great news, and it's great to see it here on AusNOG first... thanks Sunny!

Will the move to IPv6 also affect the telstra.extranet APN? 

Regards,
-Brad.
________________________________________
From: AusNOG [ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Sunny Yeung [xevious60 at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 3 August 2016 8:47 PM
To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: [AusNOG]  Telstra IPv6 Wireless Enablement

Hi AusNOGgers!

As a first step in our transition to IPv6, Telstra is proud to announce the availability of IPv6 to the general public on Telstra Wireless by the end of August/early September 2016. This means when you attach your mobile device to the Telstra network on Telstra.WAP or Telstra.Internet APNs, depending on your device configuration, you will receive both an IPv4 and IPv6 address from the network.

Note that the enablement is currently targeted at post-paid services only.

Some more official announcements will be provided over the next few weeks so keep an eye out for more information.

Overview

 *   IPv6 is a new internet protocol for the future. It contains a new addressing format for devices and applications to connect and communicate over the global internet.
 *   Due to the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses worldwide, Telstra is preparing our mobile customers by introducing IPv6 addresses for each service.
 *   Telstra’s goal for activating IPv6 is to provide the same service as IPv4, but with a more modern protocol which will allow for future growth of the Internet, and support for future technologies such as IoT.
 *   The Long Term strategy is to use IPv6 only for the entire network end-to-end.
 *   IPv6 is live on the standard Telstra.WAP and Telstra.Internet APNs. Access to IPv6 requires further configuration on the user device, which Telstra will provide automatically at a later date.

How much does it cost?

 *   It is available at the same cost as existing IPv4 services for all Telstra customers

Will IPv6 change the way I use the internet?

 *   There is no direct change in usage experience.
 *   Network administrators and IT professionals who manage network equipment and internet applications should start planning for using the new addressing structure so that their systems and applications are also accessible using IPv6 addresses.
 *   As IPv4 will be in place for many years to come across the general internet, more advanced users may change to enable IPv6 at their own pace over the coming 2+ years.

How will I know if I am using IPv6 or have IPv6 available?

 *   Depending on if you have a device with IPv6 enabled or not, one can visit ipv6.test-ipv6.com<http://ipv6.test-ipv6.com/> to test their IPv6 connection. This page will not load if one is not using IPv6.



Ok now that we’ve gotten the fluffy stuff out of the way…

What you will experience over the next few months…

The enablement will be carried out over two phases. Phase 1 is really a network function ready announcement and deployment for Dual-Stack support. This means the network is ready to carry both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic. Fundamentally there is no difference between the two APNs at this stage. This is what we will be releasing by the end of August/early September.

Phase 2 is where it will get interesting. We will begin enabling Single-Stack IPv6 devices on Telstra.WAP, and maintaining devices that attach to Telstra.internet as dual-stack. There are some good reasons for this.

1.       Single-Stack IPv6 resolves some issues with private IPv4 address depletion. We will be doing this with 464XLAT+NAT64+DNS64 on telstra.wap. This setting is primarily targeted at handsets and tablets. We will be updating handsets and tablets that can support this with the updated carrier settings via Maintenance updates in the very near future. Almost all android handsets released over the last year by Telstra already supports 464XLAT, and it just requires a carrier setting update :)

2.       Telstra.Internet is primarily used for dongles, BYOD tablets, WIFI Modems and tethering etc. we have no idea what’s on the other end and whether it supports IPv6. So we are leaving it alone as dual-stack for the time being. This APN will continue to use our regular DNS with no NAT64/DNS64 so single-stack IPv6 users beware on this APN!

Technically single-stack is working today already on Telstra.wap, and we are just ironing out some teething issues, but officially we are going to be announcing Dual-Stack support first. The network has technically been running with IPv6 enabled for about 3 years already, and if you didn’t know, VoLTE is entirely IPv6 only.



Why is AusNOG hearing this now?

Apart from being a fantastic community forum, I feel it is important that our technical community is aware of our changes first. As with all things there will be teething problems when we launch. We have already identified issues with IPv6 addressing interacting with some embedded wireless adapters and Windows 8.1. (it just fails until the interface is reset). We have done testing with certified Telstra equipment but we cannot possibly test every application / OS. So far in our testing, the network appears to be responding correctly to IPv4v6 requests, but we know that community engagement will be important on launch to keep the IPv6 momentum going. The last thing we want is to roll back to IPv4!

To make sure we get a 2nd opinion, we have also engaged an external organisation to help us test, and they have been helping us with testing for a better part of one year already, and have reported minimal issues so far. I want to take an opportunity to thank APNIC for their efforts, their patience while we got everything up and running.

I want to connect now!
Go right ahead! just be warned official support is not yet available until we officially launch in a few weeks. but i'll do my best to help. First you need a Telstra post-paid service. You need to create a new APN in your device and then save it and select it:

Non-Mobile device:
Dual-Stack
APN profile: telstra.internetDS
APN name: telstra.internet
APN type: default
APN protocol: IPv4/IPv6
APN roaming protocol: IPv4

Mobile device:
select telstra.wap APN not any others
APN profile: telstra.wapv6
APN name: telstra.wap
APN type: default,hspl
APN protocol: IPv4/IPv6 (you can set this to IPv6 only as well)
APN roaming protocol: IPv4

APN name: telstra.internet
APN type: dun
APN protocol: IPv4/IPv6
APN roaming protocol: IPv4

Contacting us

Telstra will be creating contact points in Crowdsupport, and a special email address to which will be shared later where you can engage with our engineering team directly when required. For the meantime, I am reachable if you have any specific questions. We want to work with the community to make this a smooth transition as much as possible.


Sunny Yeung

sunny.yeung at team.telstra.com<mailto:sunny.yeung at team.telstra.com>