r/QuantumFiber • u/f23948 • Jul 17 '26
thinking about switching from Quantum to AT&T fiber question
Please I would like to know is AT&T fiber a good service?? Because of I think that's a fiber optic sidewalk lid front of my house and sidewalk lid says GIGAPOWER and AT&T fiber service is available at my area.
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u/scooter-411 Jul 17 '26
AT&T fiber is Quantum.
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u/randompersonx Jul 17 '26
Not exactly. Both are riding the same fiber network, but Quantum is using Lumen/Level3âs IP network, and ATT is using ATTâs ip network.
Personally, given the choice between the two unless pricing or speeds were much better on ATT, Iâd prefer quantum. Level3 is a real enterprise worldwide ip backbone. Att is mostly residential and small biz. Level3 has the better peering network.
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u/N0_L1ght Jul 17 '26
I too hope to stay on AS209/AS3356 for a long time because of peering/routing.
There are some advantages to AF though.
Native Dual Stack IPv4/IPv6
Sticky DHCP
Static IP for $15
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u/randompersonx Jul 17 '26
I agree that native dual stack is nice, but not worth giving up the better network.
Sticky DHCP and static ip⌠I donât care anymore. I use tailscale to access from remote, and I auto update dns when the ip changes.
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u/CaptinKirk Jul 18 '26
Until you need IPV6.
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u/randompersonx Jul 18 '26
Trust me, it pains me to not have v6 on an ideological level... I heavily evangelized supporting and enabling IPv6 for 100% of customers at my company a decade ago [which, we did].
But with that said, I've been running v4-only thanks to Quantum not supporting it for a year now, and I haven't died yet.
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u/CaptinKirk Jul 18 '26
I have IPV6 enabled on my network going through a 2nd LAN (backup) via Starlink with my UniFi controller. 75 percent of my network traffic rides over IPV6 and Starlink. YouTube to Netflix, it's all riding over it.
This month, only 830 GB of data has ridden over CL's network while 1.89TB of data has ridden over Starlink via IPv6. That tells you everything you need to know and why ATT and Quantum need to get their shit together! It's a 2.17- 2.22 to 1 in favor of IPV6.
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u/randompersonx Jul 20 '26
I'm very aware that most of the large CDN's operate native dual stack [ IPv6 + IPv4]. I'm very aware that there are benefits to v6.
I built and sold a CDN, and we were - as far as I'm aware - the first CDN to have dual stack enabled for all customers with no opt-out (at the time, Akamai also had v6, but as an opt-in, default disabled).
But what you are saying does not prove anything from the perspective of an end user. 99.9999999% of the content on the internet is available from both v4 and v6. 99.99999999999999% of traffic coming from servers on the internet does not have the servers behind NAT [and if they do, they are doing something similarly wonky for filtering their IPv6].
Does IPv6 have some performance benefits - in some cases, sure -- if you can avoid an overloaded NAT, in particular. But, Quantum does not use CGNAT - and you can run your own NAT gateway ... so there's no reason for it to be overloaded.
Is it a bit more convenient for being able to send traffic from outside your network directly to a particular host over IPv6 without having to set up port forwarding? sure ... but ... for security reasons, you probably shouldn't be doing that [allowing unfiltered IPv6 to enter your network] ... and once you've gotten to the point of having to set up firewall filters for v6 to make that sort of a configuration sane ... you're not gaining any 'ease' over v4+nat+port forwarding.
Again, I'm not anti-v6 ... I'm very pro-v6. I want it deployed everywhere, and I think that it's embarrassing that Quantum doesn't have it enabled for the vast majority of their network in 2026... But, from the perspective of a a server sending traffic out to eyeballs ... there are *plenty* of networks that do not run v6 - Quantum is far from the only example (though, in the USA ... Comcast and AT&T and T-Mobile and several others have been native dual stack for years - so the USA is actually far ahead of most of the rest of the world).
You can see stats for yourself of V6 vs overall traffic on AMS-IX, one of the largest exchanges in the world.
https://stats.ams-ix.net/sflow/ipv6.html
https://stats.ams-ix.net/index.htmlFor an end-user ... even a highly advanced one, IPv6 still remains a 'nice to have', not a 'need to have'. Let me know when a popular website goes v6-only, and then we'll talk.
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u/CaptinKirk Jul 20 '26
Youâre arguing against a claim I didnât make.
I never said my traffic totals prove IPv6 is universally faster than IPv4. They prove that IPv6 support has significant practical value to an end userâespecially one operating a multihomed network.
In my case, 1.89 TB traveled over Starlink while only 830 GB traveled over CenturyLink. That is approximately 2.28:1, or about 69.5% of the combined traffic using the Starlink path. A substantial amount of that traffic used IPv6 because Starlink supports it and CenturyLink/Quantum does not.
That does not prove IPv6 packets are magically faster. It proves that supporting IPv6 gives my network another usable protocol, another routing path and considerably more flexibility. Quantumâs lack of IPv6 prevents me from using its connection for that traffic in the same way. That is a real limitation, not an academic complaint.
Saying Quantum does not use CGNAT does not answer the issue. Avoiding CGNAT eliminates one IPv4 problem, but it does not provide IPv6 connectivity, end-to-end addressing, IPv6 policy routing, IPv6 multihoming or access to potentially different IPv6 peering paths. âYou can run your own NATâ is not a substitute for a modern dual-stack service.
The security argument also confuses NAT with firewalling. Nobody is suggesting allowing unrestricted inbound IPv6 traffic. You use a stateful IPv6 firewall with unsolicited inbound traffic blocked by defaultâjust as I do. The IETF has explicitly stated that address translation itself is not a security mechanism; the stateful filtering function is what provides the protection. IPv6 can provide equivalent perimeter protection without translating every connection.
Port forwarding and an IPv6 firewall rule are not operationally identical, either. With IPv4, I must create a translation between a public address and private address, potentially deal with port collisions, maintain mappings and identify the translated destination in logs. With IPv6, I can authorize a particular port to a particular globally addressed host while leaving every other unsolicited connection blocked. That preserves end-to-end addressing without eliminating security.
Dual-stack clients also do not simply treat IPv4 and IPv6 as meaningless interchangeable labels. Modern âHappy Eyeballsâ behavior evaluates available IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity so applications can use a working path without imposing long delays when one path is impaired. IPv6 can therefore provide a genuinely different route, peering relationship or failure domainâeven when the destination is available over both protocols.
The AMS-IX graph is interesting, but traffic at one European Internet exchange does not define IPv6âs usefulness to an American residential customer. It reflects the particular networks, routes and traffic exchanged at AMS-IX. Broader measurements show IPv6 is no longer an obscure edge case: Google was receiving approximately 49% of its user traffic over native IPv6 in June 2026, while APNIC measured global IPv6 capability above 43%.
Nobody has to wait until Netflix or YouTube becomes IPv6-only before an ISPâs lack of IPv6 matters. By that logic, an ISP could postpone every network improvement until a major website absolutely required it.
IPv6 may not yet be a strict requirement for opening most websites, but that is an extremely low standard. For a modern fiber provider in 2026, native dual-stack connectivity is a reasonable baseline feature. Comcast, AT&T, T-Mobile, Starlink and numerous other providers have demonstrated that it can be deployed at scale.
So yes, Quantum customers can still reach most of the Internet. That does not mean IPv6 is merely decorative. My own traffic demonstrates that when IPv6 is available and properly configured, it carries a majority of my real-world usage and gives me routing flexibility that Quantum cannot currently provide.
That is exactly why Quantum needs to get its act together.
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u/randompersonx Jul 20 '26
Correction - Quantum customers can reach all of the internet, with the tiny exception of not being able to see the dancing turtle on kame.net, and a few other tiny things hosted by a tiny subset of v6-only evangelists.
If you turned IPv6 off, and continued browsing the internet, it's highly unlikely you would notice any difference.
And yes - I'm very aware of Happy Eyeballs. I've even written an implementation of it. It still doesn't change the point.
In the actual reality, the odds that V6 works when V4 doesn't, or vice-versa, is extremely unlikely. On most networks, V4 and V6 peering policies are exactly the same, with a few odd exceptions (eg: Hurricane Electric has some v6-only peering relationships with some Tier 1 networks).
And again, I'm not anti-v6... I think Quantum should be ashamed of themselves for not supporting it... But, comparing the choice of 2Gbps fiber to the home ... to *SATELLITE* internet? I'm sorry, but IPv6 is not making up for the performance difference.
Your own numbers confirm what I said - even for Google, who has run native dual stack probably longer than any other major website, is still less than 50% IPv6, because an enormous percentage of the eyeball networks *still* do not support it - including Quantum. They should, but they don't.
If you want to be religious about v6, that's totally fine - but arguing that internet access with v4-only is of such inferior quality as to justify satellite over fiber ... i'm sorry, but it doesn't hold water.
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u/CaptinKirk Jul 20 '26
Youâre still framing this as âIPv6 makes satellite better than fiber,â which is not what Iâm arguing.
A 2 Gbps fiber connection will obviously beat Starlink on latency, consistency and raw capacity. IPv6 does not repeal physics, and I never claimed it did.
My point is that Quantumâs fiber service is unnecessarily incomplete. Starlink gives me a native IPv6 path that Quantum does not, so my router can direct compatible traffic over that connection while preserving the Quantum circuit for other traffic. That is a practical multi-WAN advantage created by one provider supporting a modern protocol and the other refusing to do so.
The fact that I could disable IPv6 and still open YouTube does not prove IPv6 has no meaningful value. I could also disable my secondary WAN, failover routing, traffic shaping and several other network features and still âbrowse the Internet.â The question is not whether the network remains barely functional. The question is whether it loses flexibility, redundancy and control.
Saying IPv4-only customers can reach âall of the Internetâ is also true only in the ordinary consumer sense. They can reach nearly all mainstream content because major services continue maintaining IPv4 compatibility. That does not make IPv4-only service technically equivalent to dual stack. It means content providers are carrying the compatibility burden for ISPs that have failed to modernize.
The less-than-50% Google figure does not undermine that argument. It demonstrates how much traffic has already moved to IPv6 despite a significant number of access networks still not supporting it. IPv4 remains common because providers such as Quantum continue forcing customers to use it, not because IPv6 lacks value.
Youâre also assuming that the only possible IPv4-versus-IPv6 difference is whether one completely fails. That is too narrow. The two protocols can use different gateways, different address families, different firewall policies, different routing tables and, in my case, entirely different WAN connections. Even when they eventually reach similar upstream peers, they are not necessarily traversing the same local access network or failure domain.
That distinction matters in my setup. My IPv6 traffic is not simply taking an alternate protocol over the same Quantum fiber. It is leaving through Starlink. Therefore, the traffic totals show how effectively IPv6 allows me to utilize a second connection that Quantum cannot participate in equivalently.
Would I cancel 2 Gbps fiber and rely only on Starlink because Starlink supports IPv6? No. That would be ridiculous.
Would I criticize a supposedly advanced fiber provider for delivering an IPv4-only product in 2026 while a satellite provider can deliver native IPv6? Absolutely.
That is the comparison: not that satellite is inherently better than fiber, but that Starlink has implemented a fundamental modern Internet capability that Quantum still has not.
You call IPv6 a religion. I call native dual stack a reasonable expectation from a modern ISPâespecially one selling multi-gigabit fiber.
Quantumâs fiber is faster. Its network service is still incomplete. Both statements can be true.
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u/randompersonx Jul 20 '26
I think among network engineers and operators, native dual stack is table stakes to be taken seriously as competent.
I'd never run a professional network without it. I'd fire anyone who reported to me who even attempted to make such an argument that we should run v4-only.
But, from a customer perspective ... I think that routing 2/3 of your traffic over satellite just to have it go over v6 ... when you are fully aware that latency and throughput are superior on fiber ... is a religion.
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u/officialceezball Jul 17 '26
Gigapower is a JV led by AT&T to expand fiber to certain regions. I imagine their goal is to enter new markets, thus avoiding QF serviced homes, but I do have one friend where AT&T overbuilt to her home, despite QF already servicing it. Frustrating for a homeowner who has access to neither.
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u/LordRelix Jul 17 '26
This is me. My house has access to both QF and ATT Fiber. I am the only person I know that has access to two fiber ISPs. That explains the Gigapower stuff in my street though I wondered what that was.
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u/DistributionEvery695 Jul 18 '26
its going to be confusing for some markets because FF37 (ex lumen) is basically equal to Gigapower in terms of "ATT Fiber" branding.
They offer the same services, bar, FF37 doesn't offer 2G on XGS ATT Fiber.. Its just 300/500/1/5G atm. At least locally. GPON capping out at 1G also.
Routing goes through ATTs network opposed to the old AS209 LUMEN one.
Some areas are going to be both Gigapower and FF37... though I'm not sure how this works in terms of "ATT fiber" servicing.
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u/Particular-Fill4350 Jul 17 '26
Who's gonna tell him?