Business Services - IPv4 and IPv6 addresses

Introduction

Giganet provides both public IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to business broadband and Ethernet leased line services.

As IPv4 addresses are in scarce supply (approx 4 billion for the entire world and internet connected devices), IPv4 addresses need to be rationed, so typically we only provide 1 static IPv4 address per business service.

We do support IPv6 addresses, and we have plentiful of these. We offer a massive /48 IPv6 range for all services.

Businesses nowadays typically don't need the quantity of public IPv4 addresses that they otherwise once had, due to:

• Migration to cloud services (E.g. E-mails are now in Office 365 replacing an onsite Exchange servers; on-site servers are now hosted in AWS/Azure/G Cloud)
• Port address translation (PAT) and Network Address Translation (NAT), enables the secure, efficient means to share a single IPv4 address between multiple users/servers.

However, where organisations require additional IPv4 addresses, we can provide these upon request, but we make a small charge for anything additional over our default allocation. These charges help us to purchase more IPv4 addresses, and also act as a deterrent to stockpile and use IPv4 addresses when more suitable alternatives exist.

Giganet only provides managed Ethernet leased line services (with a Giganet provided Juniper router). As such we shall allocate the first usable IPv4 address within the block on our router; this shall be the default gateway for your firewall. Therefore when we talk about usable IPv4 addresses, we are factoring in the IPv4 addresses that will be allocated to our equipment and therefore the remaining 'useable' IP addresses that you can allocate to your networking equipment.

Charging for additional IPv4 addresses is not a profit centre for us; we'd rather customers didn't need to purchase extras.  

Standard IPv4 IP address allocation

• Business Broadband:
  • 1 customer usable IPv4 - (/32 framed IP over PPPoE)
• Business Leased lines:
  • 1 customer usable IPv4 - (/30 routed block; 1st IP is allocated on our Giganet managed router)
• Business HA/VRRP/RO2 leased lines:
  • 3 customer usable IPv4 - (/29 router block; 3 IPv4 required on Giganet's equipment, 1 for each router and 1 HA IPv4)

Standard IPv6 IP address allocation

• All services:
  • /48 IPv6 delegated static prefix

HA/VRRP/High Availability Designs

We define HA designs as those including:

• Two Giganet Juniper routers configured with VRRP or clustered
• Two ELITE leased line circuits (either RO2 resilience or with different carriers)

If you have a service which includes a backup broadband circuit, either with one or two Juniper routers, then this is not classed as HA in terms of IPv4 address allocations/charges. Please refer to the standard Ethernet leased line IPv4 allocations and charges.

 

Initial First IPv4 Allocations and Charges - New circuits

Business Broadband (Legacy/SuperBOLT/UltraBOLT/UltraBEAM) IPv4 Allocations and Charges

• 1st IPv4: £0 - included
• Additional IPv4s, up to a maximum of 9 in total (8 + 1 included): £1.50 per IPv4, per month

Therefore 8 additional IPv4s to provide 9 in total would be: £0 + (£1.50 x 8) = £12

We can provide individual extra framed single /32 IPv4 addresses if your equipment supports this. You don't have to opt for a CIDR subnet (e.g. /29). So we can provide any combination of additional IPv4s, such as 3 extra, 6 extra, or just 1 extra.

A maximum of an additional 8 IPv4s is permitted on our broadband services (CIDR /28 block). We charge for all IPv4s where additional are required for broadband services.

Business Ethernet Leased line (ELITE) IPv4 Allocations and Charges

You get 1 IPv4 included free of charge (/30 block), so we only charge for the additional usable IPv4 addresses. We do not charge for the unusable IPv4 addresses for the initial allocation (however we do charge for any unusable IPv4 addresses for subsequent allocations - see below).

IPv4 block	IPv4s within block	IPv4 unuseable (network/ subnet addresses)	IPv4 assigned to Giganet router	IPv4s available for customer usage	Monthly charge
/30	4	2	1	1	£0
/29	8	2	1	5	£6
/28	16	2	1	13	£18
/27	32	2	1	29	£42
/26 and below	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

 

Business Ethernet Leased line (ELITE) - High Availability Options - IPv4 Allocations and Charges

You will receive 3 IPv4s included free of charge (/29 block) as we need a larger address space to configure the VRRP redundancy (2 routers + 1 Virtual IP), so we only charge for the additional usable IPv4 addresses for the initial allocation.

IPv4 block	IPv4s within block	IPv4 unassignable	IPv4 assigned to Giganet routers	IPv4s available for customer usage	Monthly charge
/29	8	2	3	3	£0
/28	16	2	3	11	£12
/27	32	2	3	27	£36
/26 and below	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Additional IPv4s for multiple customers sharing a Giganet service

Sharing a Giganet connection with multiple end customers (e.g. Serviced offices & sub-let offices to name two obvious examples), is only permitted at the express permission of Giganet. This is because our services and prices are based on a single customer using the service; where you aggregate multiple customers behind a service, this increases usage, and thus costs which we have to either absorb or pass on.

Where Giganet permits aggregation, and you require multiple IPv4 addresses to provide each end customer their own IPv4 address (if they really must have their own IPv4), then we shall provide additional IPv4 addresses up to the maximum permitted, but at double the usual charge.

So £3 per IPv4 per month.

Subsequent First IPv4 Allocations and Charges - Existing circuits

If you already have an existing live Giganet service, and wish to add additional IPv4 addresses to your live service, then there are two ways to accomplish this:

• Swap out your existing IP addresses for a larger allocation:
  • This option is the most disruptive, you will have to reconfigure your firewall, all port forwarding, DNS records and update anything that had been using your old IP addresses.
  • Your old IPv4 subnet shall be removed from your router and service and sponged, before being reallocated to another Giganet customer at a later date.
  • We will then provide a larger initial IPv4 allocation and one subnet on your service.
  • This option however is the most efficient with the IP address space, as you won't be paying for two lots of unusable IP addresses.
  • This option is recommended for customers that have only recently gone live with their Giganet service and the impact to re-IP addressing is not that significant.
  • As we'd re-IP address your service, please refer to the initial IPv4 address allocations & charges above.
• Add an additional IPv4 address block to your existing range:
  • This option is the least disruptive and the recommended option for customers that have been using their Giganet service a while, have port forwarding configured, and are using their previously allocated public IPv4s.
  • For customers with HA/VRRP options, please discuss this with your account manager or our tech support teams, as you may require a minimum additional /29 allocation to make this possible.
  • This option is slightly more expensive, as you are having to pay for a up to 3 unusable IPv4 addresses, but this could be minimise to only paying for 1 unusable IPv4 address if you are just after an additional 1 IPv4, and your networking hardware supports a /31.
  • The charges for the second allocation are more than the initial allocation as we do not discount the unusable IPs for subsequent allocations.

As a reminder, an IPv4 block can have up to 3 unusable IPs - network address, Giganet router (your default gateway) and subnet address.

Business Ethernet Leased line (ELITE) subsequent IPv4 Allocations and Charges

Initial/Current IPv4 block	Subsequent IPv4 blocks	Initial usable IPv4s	Subsequent usable IPv4s	Initial monthly charge	Subsequent monthly charge
/30	/30 + /31	1	1 + 1	£0	£0 + £3
/30	/30 + /30	1	1 + 1	£0	£0 + £6
/30	/30 + /29	1	1 + 5	£0	£0 + £12
/29	/29 + /30	5	5 + 1	£6	£6 + £6
/29	/29 + /29	5	5 + 5	£6	£6 + £12
/28	/28 + /29	13	13 + 5	£18	£18 + £12
/28	/28 + /28	13	13 + 13	£18	£18 + £24

The above is not an exhaustive list of the combinations, but the following rules apply:

• You cannot have an allocation that would exceed the equivalent of a /27 block. E.g. If you have a /27 already, and wish to add more IPs, then this is not possible.
• The minimum extra block size is a /31. A /31 may not be supported on your device, and therefore you may have to go for a /30.

Additional IPv4 addresses are only available for our business services

Our home broadband services only include IPv4 address and additional are not possible. If you require more IP addresses at home, then please consider one of our business broadband services.

Why are there additional charges and limits on IPv4 addresses?

There are only a finite amount of IPv4 addresses remaining, and since 2014, RIPE NCC, the body that is in charge of Internet addressing allocations in the EMEA region have 'run out' of addresses to hand out. Since this time, to acquire additional IPv4 addresses requires purchasing them on the open market. In 2021, the charge to acquire a minimum /24 (256 IPs), is now approx. $8,000. This is increasing month on month.

IPv4 addresses, (which are the most prevalent on the Internet), were never designed with today’s super connected world in mind. Therefore, there are maximum of ~4.2 billion IPv4 addresses available across the world to share, and a few million of these are reserved and can’t be allocated to end users.

Therefore, we have to be careful to assign large blocks of IPv4s to customers as we only have a finite resource as do every other ISP. We also have to adhere to RIPE NCC rules.

As IPv4s are a scarce resource, and most organisations will only need a single IPv4 address (as most internal IT has been moved to the cloud), we have implemented a small charge for each additional IPv4 required.

Isn't IPv6 the solution?

IPv6 is the next version and has 340 undecillion available IP addresses! (That’s 2¹²⁸)

The bad news is that IPv6 and IPv4 are incompatible, so hence why most people require IPv4 IPs still as most of the Internet hasn’t made the transition yet.

Giganet offers all IPv6 addressing.

However, most customers will continue to need to use IPv4 IPs for to maintain compatibility.

Network Address Translation and Port Address Translation (NAT & PAT)

To ensure the most efficient use of IPv4 addresses, we recommend that you consider maximising the usage of Network Address Translation (NAT) and Port Address Translation (PAT). NAT allows you to share a single public IPv4 address between multiple internal local area network (LAN) devices. Whereas Port Address Translation (PAT) allows you to map different ports on a single IPv4 address to different internal Local Area Network (LAN) devices.

NAT example:

• Internal LAN 192.168.0/24
• Internal DMZ 10.10.10.0/24

Both these internal subnets and the devices on the LANs can be NAT'd out of a single public IPv4 address.

PAT example:

• HTTPS - TCP 443
• HTTP - TCP 80
• SMTP - TCP 25
• RDP - TCP 3389
• SSH - TCP 22
• SIP - TCP/UDP 5060

Can all share a single public IPv4 address yet be translated to different servers internally on your LAN/DMZ.

It's a misconception that you need a dedicated IP address per server, or per port forwarding rule. You can in fact share a public IPv4 address, configured multiple port forwarding rules.

TERMS

• Pricing is monthly and excludes VAT at the prevailing rate.
• Minimum term matches the connectivity.
• Charges are in addition to the cost of your connectivity.
• Business customers only.
• Business broadband customers are limited to a maximum of 8 additional IPv4 addresses.
• Business Ethernet leased line customers are limited to a maximum of a /27 CIDR prefix or total that does not exceed a /27 if multiple smaller blocks have been issued.
• Customers do not own the IPv4 blocks.
• IP address are statically assigned, but M12 may need to reassign customer’s IP allocations, but will take all reasonable measures to avoid disrupting the customer.
• If a customer has ordered an RO2 or fully managed failover/backup ELITE (leased line) service, then the included allocation is 1 x /29 block. The maximum allocation is still a /27.