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by samplonius 3201 days ago
That is generally the opposite of reality. IPv6 is generally faster than IPv4.

I don't know what "a couple of years ago" is, but all tier-1 ISPs have IPv6 backbones. There should be no reason for your access ISP to have to tunnel anything to get to a tier-1.

Your statement "Most ISPs (including mine) are using 6rd gateways to get their customers onto the IPv6 backbone" is kind of a red flag. If ISPs aren't connected to a backbone, can you even call them an ISP?

3 comments

Some ISPs (I don't know if it's accurate to say most) have last-mile or middle-mile equipment that does not support IPv6 and they can't afford to upgrade it, hence kludges like 6rd. Of course good ISPs don't use kludges, but then you're getting into no true Scotsman territory.
This is the experience I had with CenturyLink, they support IPv6 via 6rd and it sucks. It's annoying I don't have native IPv6 support with CableOne either (and they're too cheap to bother upgrading anything beyond the DOCSIS head-ends to charge you more money), but I'd rather use a Hurricane Electric tunnel if my ISP can't give me native v6 in the first place.
AT&T has deployed 6RD instead of native dual-stack. I can get close to gigabit on IPv4, but max out at 80mbps if I use their 6RD gateway.
It also crashes some of their modems! Every few hours through normal traffic, in under a minute if I quickly visit many IPv6 addresses.
AT&T has some areas on native dual-stack now. I gather they are working on moving away from 6rd.
I think you're conflating "backbone" with metro distribution. I'm pretty sure that all of the big US ISPs have native IPv6 on the backbone, but very few can bring native IPv6 to your home.

Most of the big US ISPs are using 6rd: AT&T, CenturyLink, and Cox. As far as I know, Comcast is the only one with true IPv6 to the curb but I might be wrong about that.

Comcast and Charter both have native IPv6 which is about 50% of the US market.