Enable IPv6 on your NBN connection: the free hidden upgrade in your router

Most Australians probably don’t think about internet addresses too often – and rightfully so. We’ve got a lot more interesting things to think about than internet infrastructure.

However, if you’re a gamer, running a home server, or looking to port forward for self-hosted services, enabling IPv6 might be the upgrade you’re looking for.

It’s not a speed boost or a magic fix for all your issues, but if you’ve ever had packet loss, latency slowdown or hosting problems, your IP address configuration could be related.

What is IPv4?

These terms refer to version numbers for the way computers are addressed on networks like the internet.

IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses with numbers from 0 to 255. That gives it roughly 4.3 billion addresses to work with – and when it was first invented we thought this was more than enough.

How wrong we were!

The internet ran out of new IPv4 allocations in 2011, meaning new internet customers had to share public IP addresses.

Enter CGNAT

CGNAT, or Carrier-Grade NAT, is how ISPs assign multiple customers to the same public IPv4 address.

Essentially, this technology places a middleman between your home router and the open internet.

For most people, this works out just fine. However, it can present major issues if you’re trying to connect directly between two devices over the internet.

Hosting game servers with your friends, sharing media away from home, and self-hosting services like email or network-addressed storage becomes difficult or impossible behind a CGNAT.

That’s because with multiple people sharing one public IP, a connection can’t push through to the correct device reliably.

What is IPv6?

IPv6 is a huge upgrade to IPv4, and means it’ll be a long, long time before we run out of public IP addresses again.

128-bit addressing gives us addresses four times as long as IPv4. The result is roughly 10^28 times as many addresses – exponentially larger.

Where IPv4 provides around 4.3 billion addresses, IPv6 provides a total of 2^128 or 340 undecillion.

That means that essentially, there’s no need for NAT anymore – devices can communicate directly.

IPv4 vs IPv6 – Why should I switch?

There are some myths surrounding IPv6, like it being a magic bullet for internet problems or that it makes your internet faster.

Those aren’t true, but there are a few benefits to enabling IPv6.

IPv6 doesn’t directly make your internet speeds faster, but there’s anecdotal evidence that suggests it can reduce latency and make pages feel snappier and more responsive – especially on networks optimised for it.

Pages that are CDN-dependent like many shopping platforms, streaming services, and online applications may benefit because large content providers like Cloudflare and Akamai optimise IPv6 routing.

The biggest, most noticeable benefits can be seen in online gaming, working from home, and remote access.

If you’ve ever played an online multiplayer game and seen “Strict NAT” or “Nat Type 3” conditions that limit your matchmaking, CGNAT is the likely culprit. Switching to IPv6 can result in faster matchmaking and fewer connection drops.

Voice and video applications like Zoom or Teams often try to establish peer-to-peer connections, but behind CGNAT they fall back to a relay server that can reduce speed and quality. Opting into IPv6 might give you an improvement in these applications.

If you self-host things like network-addressed storage, security cameras, or home servers, CGNAT can prevent access entirely or cause many issues. IPv6 helps to make these devices visible and allows you to connect to them directly.

How do I enable it?

First you’ll need to check that your service provider supports IPv6. The good news is that the most popular telcos do: Aussie Broadband, Superloop, Spintel, Launtel, Exetel, Telstra and Vodafone all support it. Starlink also supports it.

A few notable exceptions are Optus, TPG, Belong, iiNet, and Amaysim.

To enable IPv6, you’ll need to enter your router’s administration page and find IPv6 settings – usually under “Advanced” or “Internet Settings”.

Select the appropriate IPv6 connection type. For the majority of Australian telco setups this is Dynamic IP or DHCPv6.

Once enabled, you may have to restart your router to get it to switch over.

To verify it worked, you can check Google’s IPv6 test.

Enabling IPv6 won’t exactly revolutionise your internet browsing experience, but it’s free, low-effort, and you can’t break anything by trying it out. It’s an important part of the future of the internet.