eir Mobile and GoMo now support IPv4v6 and IPv6

APNs data.myeirmobile.ie and broadband.myeirmobile.ie now also support IPv4v6 and IPv6 connections.

To manually update a phone to also have IPv6 connectivity edit the APN protocol to "IPv6" or "IPv4/IPv6".

Most Android phones let the APN protocol be edited. Apple iOS phones do not let this setting be edited by the user.

Existing phones of all types will continue to request IPv4 connections until their software/configuration settings have been updated to request IPv4v6 or IPv6. In all cases phones will continue to have IPv4 connectivity even when the requested APN protocol is "IPv6".

More technical details

IPv6 end-to-end traffic bypasses the network NAT.

The IPv6 DNS servers advertised by the eir network generate DNS64 AAAA responses to DNS queries made over IPv6 transport. i.e. DNS IPv6 AAAA records are synthesised for FQDNs that only have IPv4 A records.

IPv4v6 is dual stack, the UE (User Equipment e.g. a smartphone) requests both an IPv4 address and an IPv6 /64 prefix from the network gateway router.

IPv6 is single stack, the UE requests only an IPv6 /64 prefix from the network, but it still gets access to IPv4 end-points on the Internet through the network's NAT64. 

IPv4 is single stack, the phone requests only an IPv4 address from the network. IPv6 end-points are not reachable when the phone only has IPv4 connectivity. All traffic goes via the NAT which does NAT44 for traffic sourced from IPv4 end-points.

Only one set of IPv6 DNS servers can be advertised per APN so both dual stack and single stack IPv6 connections receive DNS64 responses for DNS queries made over IPv6 transport. Since Happy Eyeballs favours IPv6 over IPv4 this means in the case of IPv4v6 most traffic to IPv4 end-points goes through NAT64 instead of NAT44. The only exception would be a connection made from an IPv4 end-point where the DNS response used was an A record resulting from a query made over IPv4 transport.

APN protocol IPv4/IPv6 tells the phone to request IPv4 and IPv6 and set it up in any way it can. IPv4v6 means the network is set-up to allow both IPv4 and IPv6 over the same radio bearer which is more efficient than separate parallel bearers for IPv4 and IPv6.

Mobile hotspot tethering where the UE is acting as hotspot supports 64share (RFC 7278) which allows tethered devices to also have IPv6 Internet access.

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