IPv6 Network - Getting a Tunnel
After all the examples of how to create a manually configured tunnel, just one ingredient is missing for a successful tunnel setup: the other side. In this regard, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that many places around the Net offer tunnel connections. The bad news is that many of them are hard to find. This is especially true for ISPs that offer tunnels, as IPv6 isn’t exactly big business (yet) for ISPs. Still, a tunnel from an ISP has considerable advantages. First, because your traffic flows over their network anyway, there is no detour for IPv6 traffic. Second, they know you, so it’s usually possible to get a fixed tunnel without the need for authentication systems. Third, getting IPv6 traffic from your ISP doesn’t cost them any extra bandwidth. Getting it from a third party means that all IPv6 traffic to and from you needs to flow over their network, and giving this away for free isn’t a sustainable business model in the long run.

However, if your ISP doesn’t support IPv6, you’ll have to get a tunnel somewhere else. The 6bone is being phased out, so the old advice of connecting to the 6bone with a tunnel that still floats around the Net is no longer very useful. Your best bet is one of the tunnel brokers. Most, if not all, tunnel brokers give out IPv6 tunnels to the general public for free. However, they all approach this task differently. Most require some kind of registration, and some use special client software to set up the tunnel. The amount of address space they give out greatly varies, from a single address to a full /48. Table 3-1 lists some well-known tunnel brokers. It is well worth the time to find one that suits your needs rather than to pick just a random one.

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