IPv6 tunnel for ISP sought

Hello.  I looked through the recent archives and didn't see
this 
question addressed, so please excuse me if it has been
beaten to death 
or is considered off-topic.

We have a UUnet link and a secondary provider.  The
secondary provider 
has no IPv6 facilities.  UUnet (er, Verizon Business) has
IPv6 clue, but 
there is an impenetrable wall between the customer and the
clue which 
assures that there will be no IPv6 links or tunnels ever
given to customers.

We would like to get an IPv6 tunnel to begin limited testing
of IPv6 for 
customers.  Is there any IPv6-savvy ISP out there who will
give/sell 
tunnels to other ISPs?

Experimentation with SixXS.NET has proven to be problematic,
so I'd 
rather have a more stable and commercial relationship if
possible.

As you might guess, our IPv6 traffic load is estimated to be
between 
"zero" and "unmeasurably small," but
we'd still like to have it hover 
above the absolute zero mark.

Any help/pointers/advice/proposals gratefully solicited.

jms
-- 
Joel M Snyder, 1404 East Lind Road, Tucson, AZ, 85719
Senior Partner, Opus One       Phone: +1 520 324 0494
jmsOpus1.COM                http://www.opus1.com/jms

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 3:44 PM, Joel Snyder
<Joel.Snyderopus1.com> wrote:
>  We would like to get an IPv6 tunnel to begin limited
testing of IPv6 for
>  customers.  Is there any IPv6-savvy ISP out there who
will give/sell
>  tunnels to other ISPs?
>
>  Experimentation with SixXS.NET has proven to be
problematic, so I'd
>  rather have a more stable and commercial relationship
if possible.

Joel,

Give the folks at Hurricane Electric a shot if you haven't
already:
http://tunnelbroker.net/


Regards,
Bill Herrin



-- 
William D. Herrin herrindirtside.com billherrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>

Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

On Mar 22, 2008, at 2:44 PM, Joel Snyder wrote:
>
> We would like to get an IPv6 tunnel to begin limited
testing of IPv6  
> for customers.  Is there any IPv6-savvy ISP out there
who will give/ 
> sell tunnels to other ISPs?
>
> Experimentation with SixXS.NET has proven to be
problematic, so I'd  
> rather have a more stable and commercial relationship
if possible.
>

You've got a few options.

First, if you're having a problem with SixXS, make sure you
let them  
know. They're good guys there, and their support tends to be
faster  
than some companies we've bought transit from.  But,
you're right,  
that isn't a commercial service and is more on the
"best effort" side  
of things, instead of the SLA side. There are other services
like  
SixXS that give out tunnels more-or-less automatically  
(tunnelbroker.net from Hurricane Electric, is the other big
one), but  
that's also pretty much a best effort service.

If you're wanting more than an auto-created tunnel, because
you want  
to run BGP or have your own space announced, or someone to
yell at  
when it breaks, you'll probably need to find someone who
will treat a  
tunnel like a customer connection.

Hurricane Electric was offering BGP over tunnels at one
point, but I  
don't know if they still are. Sprint made an announcement
years ago  
that they were offering free tunnels with BGP and treated
them more or  
less like customer ports, but I don't know if that's still
happening.  
If your use is really small, we've given some free
"tunnels as  
customers" to a few ISPs, but I don't know if the level
of support I'm  
offering is really what you're looking for either.

I don't know that anyone out there right now is doing a
"Tunnels for  
Dollars" kinda situation, because it's so hard to
support. If the v4  
path between you and the tunnel provider breaks, there's not
always  
anything anyone can do about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IPv6_tunnel_brokers
 might be a  
good place to start.

-- Kevin

Kevin Day wrote:
> 
> Hurricane Electric was offering BGP over tunnels at one
point, but I 
> don't know if they still are. Sprint made an
announcement years ago that 
> they were offering free tunnels with BGP and treated
them more or less 
> like customer ports, but I don't know if that's still
happening. If your 
> use is really small, we've given some free
"tunnels as customers" to a 
> few ISPs, but I don't know if the level of support I'm
offering is 
> really what you're looking for either.
> 

I can vouch that Sprint is still offering IPv6 with BGP over
tunnels. 
I'm currently announcing my /48 with it, but I don't use it
too much 
beyond testing/playing. I'm still waiting for it to become
dual-stack, 
so if anyone from Sprint is reading this... ;)

~Seth

Joel Snyder wrote:
[..]
> Experimentation with SixXS.NET has proven to be
problematic,

How so? It is always fun to read that people have
'problems', but it is 
even funnier then when the person's name isn't even listed
in 
whois.sixxs.net and thus doesn't even have an account, nor
am I able to 
even find a single email from either opus1 or your name,
thus I really 
wonder what things are 'problematic' for you. You might be
interested to 
try this marvelous thing called the World Wide Web, and read

http://www.sixxs.net/co
ntact/ and when you have done that, use this 
great invention called email to contact us, if you still
have questions 
about things, that is why that page is there, clearly people
are scared 
by it and don't dare to ask...

> As you might guess, our IPv6 traffic load is estimated
to be between 
> "zero" and "unmeasurably small,"
but we'd still like to have it hover 
> above the absolute zero mark.

Then again, if you are a real ISP, you will have to do what
everybody 
else in the business is doing:

  - get a block from ARIN (or your favorite local RIR 
    http://www.s
ixxs.net/tools/grh/dfp/arin/ doesn't list you,
    thus you might want to start out there
  - arrange transit
    - this generally means you are going to pay for bits
      just like in the IPv4 world.
  - fix your routers and the rest of your network

Though SixXS is there to get people going in using IPv6, it
definitely 
is not meant to support your full business process, if you
require that, 
go pay somebody who can give you their full attention, there
are lists 
in the FAQ with organizations who can do that for you for
that purpose.

Greets,
  Jeroen

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 03:44:14PM -0400, Joel Snyder
wrote:
> We have a UUnet link and a secondary provider.  The
secondary provider 
> has no IPv6 facilities.  UUnet (er, Verizon Business)
has IPv6 clue, but 
> there is an impenetrable wall between the customer and
the clue which 
> assures that there will be no IPv6 links or tunnels
ever given to customers.

Hi Joel,

Most ISPs that are doing IPv6 have contacts outside of the
normal
support and sales infrastructure for dealing with IPv6 turn
up.
Sprint, for example, has a different email address that you
can hit
and get straight to some people that understand what you're
asking
about.

Searching in whois maybe points to ipv6opseng.us.uu.net and if that
doesn't pan out, someone on ipv6-ops might have a better
idea.

-- 
Ross Vandegrift
rosskallisti.us

"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians,
and all those who
make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the
mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and
to confine
man in the bonds of Hell."
	--St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37

Joel Snyder wrote:
> We would like to get an IPv6 tunnel to begin limited
testing of IPv6 
> for customers.  Is there any IPv6-savvy ISP out there
who will 
> give/sell tunnels to other ISPs?
Are there any EU ISPs doing IPv6 BGP peering/freebie
transit-ish via 
tunnels?

I'm trying to do some testing of IPv6 at the moment, just in
case anyone 
asks me to deploy it in anger at some point in the future.
Sadly none of 
my transit providers will do IPv6, so I'm currently doing my
testing 
using a BGP tunnel to those lovely people at HE. Sadly the
latency to 
destinations on this side of the atlantic is high with
packets hopping 
across to their US tunnel server and back!

Thanks,
adam.