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MarkT's avatar
MarkT
New Contributor

Cox does IPv6...wrong?

A friend of mine told me he now has IPv6 on his home Internet service, so I went and turned on IPv6 (DHCPv6) on my home router. Hooray--it works.

That's the end of the good news.

The IETF recommended in RFC3177 that all always-on connections be allocated NO LESS THAN a /48 address allocation, and that under no circumstances should individual users be given something as small as a /64.  Well, guess what--Cox is allocating /64s.  So, you have a very large number of addresses available for your use...but you can do almost nothing with them.  It'd be great to be able to subdivide all those addresses into smaller subnets--say, for gaming, for kids, for IoT stuff (like your TV), and your computers.  But guess what--the smallest allocation unit is a /64, so you can't.

The thing is, there was absolutely NO REASON for Cox to be this stingy.  There are no shortage of IPv6 addresses in the world, nor will there be in my lifetime.  It would cost Cox virtually nothing to give away /48's.  But they don't.

Since having multiple home networks is something I need...I can't move to IPv6.  Not without buying a business account, which is an expense that would only be justifiable if my request actually cost Cox something. 

Thanks for nothing, Cox.   

P.S. This is the most complete information I can get.  I did try to get more information from technical support, but their tier-2 people don't have any more information, and they insist there is no tier-3 escalation point.  Seriously?

cox ipv6

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  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator
    @MarkT

    My understanding is if your device requests a /56 you should be able to get it.

  • MarkT's avatar
    MarkT
    New Contributor

    Thank you.  So far, my efforts to request a /56 have not yielded results.  I will look into it more thoroughly.

    If what you are saying is accurate, it sure would be nice if the Level 2 support team had this information.  I'm not expecting it from Level 1, but Level 2 generally is where you go to get real answers to this stuff, especially if there is no 3rd tier.

    Mark