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Comment by makkesk8 | Hacker News Reader

My isp don't offer ipv6 either but I've worked around the issue using tunnelbroker.com from hurricane electric (free) to get a /64, it works really great. Route48 is another such free service.

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Most people on ipv6 are there on their phones. Wireless carriers need ipv6 where most landline operators don’t.

Hurricane Electric is great. These days my ISP offers IPv6 via 6rd, but since it's a dynamic prefix (tied to the dynamic IPv4 address) I still maintain the HE tunnel for a static IPv6 prefix while routing most traffic over 6rd. The routing tables get a bit complicated since I can't send packets with the HE source address through the ISP's 6rd tunnel or vice-versa, so I have to route based the source and not just the destination, but overall it works fairly well.

I'm still hoping my ISP eventually offers native IPv6 with a static prefix but it doesn't seem to be a priority for them. On the other hand they haven't gone to CGNAT yet for IPv4—which would break the HE tunnel—so it's not as bad as it could be.

Depending on what you're actually running at your IP, consider if dynv6.com will work for your dynamic IP. I switched and I've never noticed a difference really. Only one machine on the /64 (or /60 or whatever you have) has to actually ping dynv6 service; it automatically updates the prefix for all other AAAA records. Moreover I've got it set up with a dead simple shell script using curl, no service-specific binaries needed.

Indeed, at this point my only problem is my ISP router will not route the WAN ipv4 address to the appropriate host when the source is on the LAN, meaning I have to use ipv6 to access my public facing server while at home.

I have a custom system in place for IPv4 to update AWS Route53 based on this script[0] which I could easily extend to update my AAAA records at the same time, but I prefer a stable IP address. Dynamic DNS (v4 or v6) has a tendency to break down for a time whenever the IP address changes until the old records have expired from resolvers' caches.

[0] https://willwarren.com/2014/07/03/roll-dynamic-dns-service-u...

I used to run a HE tunnel, but certain IPv6-enabled sites like Netflix would complain loudly. I guess from Netflix's perspective, it appeared I was using a VPN to get around region locks, maybe. But since I've recently canceled Netflix, maybe it's time to revisit that HE tunnel...

Used to use the same, killed it when my wife's Google things worked better without IPv6. Everything Google worked better on her phone the second I turned it off.

Why are they offering it for free? What are they hoping to achieve?

They're focusing on the enterprise segment (in general, the company running this is a known tier-1 corporation), which will pay $$$ for a reliable and uncongested connections.

It's good will, technical education and marketing of complementary services. HE sells Internet connectivity and datacenter colocation, B2B. Increasing the number of technically sophisticated people who like and appreciate HE produces more opportunities for sales.

Also, it doesn't cost them much in exchange for lots of good will.

It also gets them some IPv6 traffic that they can use when negotiating transit, which is good for them.

I believe hurricane electric's IPv6 tunnel program was a strong factor in them becoming the de facto connectivity hub for IPv6, helping them establish peering relationships with other large carriers for v6 at least and sometimes they get v4 peering as well, but at least they get a relationship. You're not really on the v6 internet unless you have connectivity with he.net, so most carriers will connect with them for that.

That connectivity makes it easier to sell their transit services, etc. If you're a BGP speaking network and connect with them for v6 transit because it's good, you may as well try their v4 transit too, because you already established a relationship, right?

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