AIS and access to certain websites

[Pib]

They did call back and I now have a IPV6 connection status in my router but when using the test-ipv6.com website above it still says no IPV6 address detected.   I do have TCP/IP 6 turned on in Windows....see below snapshot below.

 

And this Microsoft webpage talks how to disable and reenable ipv6 on your computer but I don't want to try that just yet since Windows turns on IPV6 by default (it's on right now) and if you do turn it back off by unchecking the appropriate block below that does the same think as far as know.  

 

Now I did notice the IPv6 "gateway" that AIS is using starts with an "fe" and my IPV6 address starts with 2405.   The test-ipv6.com website says any IPV6 address starting with "fe"  (among some others) will not work on the public IPv6 network.  Although my address starts with 2405 the associated AIS gateway starts with "fe" which may be the problem.

 

Quote from test-ipv6.com

Quote

If you strongly believe you have IPv6, but we were unable to detect it: it means one of a couple of things. Either your organization is blocking the use of IPv6 to talk to the outside Internet through network policy; or perhaps what you see with IPv6 on your host is not a global address. Any address starting with "::", "fc", "fd", or "fe" are unable to work with the public IPv6 Internet.

 

AIS has called me back several times regarding this problem, but I still can't get the test website to say I have an IPv6 address...nor can I reach the ipv6.google.com pages given earlier in this thread.  

 

Is it something on my end/my computer I don't have setup right or is it AIS?

 

 

[Pib]

On 9/18/2017 at 6:21 PM, revelstone said:

Just noticed another oddity with AIS IPV6 - I can access any ipv6 website with https but NOT with http. You can check this easily yourself - just go to http://ipv6.google.com and then try https://ipv6.google.com (you can also use www.v6.facebook.com as an alternative).

 

Go through a VPN and I can use http to these websites with no problem. Anyone else able to replicate this?

 

AIS just activated IPV6 on my account after I called them, but I still can't reach above websites....just like when I didn't have IPV6 activated as I mentioned in an earlier posts.  Also, using the http://ipv6-test.com/validate.php website to validate above address it says its a validate IPv6 site but it may not be reachable on all ISPs since it does not have a the domain has no registered IPv6 DSN server......see below.

 

 

[Pib]

AIS did activate my line for IPv6...and they did call back within 3 hours.  In fact they had to call me back several times because after I got the first call it has been activated and I confirmed I could see my IPv6 connection activated in my router menu, I couldn't get the various test sites which test your IPv6 connection to confirm their was a connection.   

 

While they did activate the IPv6 connection it turned out I had some IPv6 setup issue with my computer which I figured out between some of those calls with AIS.  My last call with them was just a thank you for the quick activation and assistance.

 

Below is long winded discription of  how I got the IPv6 connection thing fully working on my computer after AIS Fibre did their part and  activate my connection/update my router for IPv6.  

 

Although when going into Windows to confirm TCP/IPv6 was turned on like shown in my earlier post (I've always had it turned on the years regardless of computer or version of Windows I was running), apparently it was not fully turned on.  And as mentioned in the other post I even turn it off and back on and it didn't fix the issue. 

 

So, I got brave and decided to try the Easy Fix at the this Microsoft Support webpage which basically has a variety of Easy Fix routines to turn off or on IPv6, set whether IPv6 or IPv4 DNS connections/prefixes are preferred, etc.   Go to the webpage and you see what I mean.

 

I first used the routine titled "Disable IPv6" instead of running "Re-enable IPv6" because I thought to myself since Windows says IPv6 is enabled I'll just let the routine disable it in case it does it a different way.  I then ran the "Re-enable IPv6" routine which also created a restore point and then told me to reboot my computer.  After reboot using the IPv6 test websites reports I'm good to go with IPv6 since AIS activated IPv6 on my line.

 

I then began to worry about this IPv6 DNS preferred over IPv4 or IPv4 DNS preferred over IPv6 thing like RichCor mentioned earlier which can cause problems in reaching some sites sometimes. 

 

Now the above Microsoft website also has routines to select the preference of either IPv4 preferred over IPv6 or the other way with IPv6 over IPv4...but I did not run either one of those, for now at least.     First I wanted to figure out what preference with the routine I did run had set because nothing in the routine's title gives you that info.  And the answer to that is really don't know for sure, but I'll research it some more over the coming days.

 

However, I did find out that apparently each browser (i.e., Chrome, IE, Edge, Firefox, etc) has a "default" of either IPv6 or IPv4 it "first" tries....and maybe it really gets that preference from how your have your Windows TCP setup...like the Easy Fix routine I ran...I really don't know.  If the browser can't reach a site after X-seconds the browser falls back to trying the other protocol.  So, if the browser's default is to first try a IPv6 connection it will try for X-seconds before falling back to IPv6....or it could be the other way...try IPv4 first, if unreachable fall back to IPv6 after X-seconds.

 

I found that testing your connection at this ipv6-test.com site will give you detailed info/results....much better than testing to a very similarly named webpage of test-ipv6.com I mentioned earlier which gives fewer results.  See a couple of snapshots below of the differences in info given.   When using the first site mentioned it will also tell you which IpvX DNS the browser first tries and how long it waits before trying/falling back to the other IpvX DNS...plus it tells you other things.

 

I have Chrome, IE and Edge on my computer....I tested all three at the ipv6-test site and it showed all three browsers defaulted to attempting an IPv6 connection first and how many seconds they would wait before trying a IPv4 connection.  Maybe that is telling me the Microsoft routine I ran set my computer to give an IPv6 connection priority over an IPv4 connection.  Anyway, For Chrome and Edge they would wait on 1 second for a IPv6 connection before falling back to a IPv4 connection.  For IE it would wait 8 seconds before falling back to IPv4.

 

Summary: I "think" I'm good to go with the IPv6 thing what little I really understand about it....time will tell.

 

IPV6-test.com Results/Info Given

 

 

Test-ipv6.com Results/Info Given

 

[Pib]

This webpage primarily talks comparison of IPv4 and IPv6 site speed but it also has a paragraph above how various browsers may prefer one protocol over another.  Quoted below.

Quote

What is interesting to note is that some browsers actually favor the use of IPv6 over IPv4 and include a timer to decide whether to shift over to IPv4. Firefox and Opera used parallel TCP connections over both IPv4 and IPv6, but Apple uses a 25ms timer in favor of IPv6 and Google used a 300ms timer in its Chrome browser.

 

Also, that  ipv6-test.com website has a Speedtest that can test to a half dozen or so sites that have "both" IPv4 and IPv6 connections.   When I ran the speed test to Sri Lanka their IPv6 connection was much faster than their IPv4 connection.  Got similar results when testing to the other half dozen speed test sites....the IPv6 connection was always significantly faster.

 

 

 

 

 

[Pib]

Comcast has a dual IPv4 and IPv6 speed tester which tests to several dozen U.S. Comcast sites. 

 

First link below talks about the tester and others.   Second link is to the tester itself.    To select whether you want to test with s IPv4 or IPv6 connection (if your ISP also has IPv6 capability) and the site you want to test to, click the Advanced Settings button on the tester to make the selection.   

 

I randomly tested to around a half dozen of their sites/servers around the U.S. using both IPv4 and IPv6.  At 4 of the sites there was not any significantly difference between IPv4 and IPv6 speed....I ran the test multiple times at each location...sometimes IPv4 would win by a nose....other times IPv6 would win by a nose.  

 

But two locations I tested, the Jacksonville, Florida and Manassas, Virginia servers, consistently gave much higher speeds on a IPv6 connection.  Once again, I did multiple tests to these locations.   

 

So, based on the limited testing I did to these half dozen IPv4/IPv6 sites, IPv6 was the winner since 4 of the sites were neck-and-neck in speed between the two different connections (call it a tie), but at two other sites IPv6 was the clear winner.

 

Talks about the tester

https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2014/02/comcasts-speedtest-now-breaks-out-ipv6-speed-vs-ipv4-speed/

 

Speedtester Link

http://speedtest.xfinity.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2017 by Pib

[Pib]

Here is some IPv4/IPv6 Stats from the ipv6-test.com website.  Below link takes you to their stats on Thailand.  You can go back to their main page and under Stats select the country you want stats on.  The stats are based on tests done to the ipv6-test.com website.

 

Anyway, for IPv6 it looks like AIS and its subsidiary company of AWN are the 800 pound guerrilla in Thailand for IPv6.  And in one graph which shows a comparison of IPv4 and IPv6 bandwidth in Thailand, the two have been equal since around mid 2014.  Actually going back further than mid 2014 for certain periods of time...but after mid 2014 the two protocols had the same bandwidth (except for minor & brief dip in mid 2016).   Look at the chart...you see what I mean.  

 

But there is a chart right below the graph talking highest IPv6 internet speed provider in Thailand and True wins that trophy but it was based on only 59 tests.  

 

Stats on Thailand

http://ipv6-test.com/stats/country/TH

 

[revelstone]

I find IPv6 to be a big advantage to me. Browsing to many websites is faster and my internal machines are reachable from the internet because there is no NAT. Of course, there is a learning curve involved if you want to use it effectively on machines behind your firewall (DHCPv6 vs SLAAC, prefixes, temporary IPV6 addresses, etc.)

 

Since AIS now seems to have fixed the problem where they were blocking port 80 on IPv6, things are now working much better.

 

Given the depletion of the IPv4 address space, I'm surprised they are not systematically handing out IPv6. Seems like a silly marketing ploy to me. Looking at my Netflow graphs, I see that about 40% - 50% of my total traffic is already ipv6