5.6 UE support of IPv6

23.2213GPPArchitectural requirementsRelease 17TS

The set of IPv6 functionality a 3GPP UE will require is dependent on the services (IMS, Packet Streaming etc.) it will use.

As a minimum, a 3GPP UE shall comply with the Basic IP group of specifications as defined in RFC 3316 [21]. This IPv6 functionality is sufficient to provide compatibility towards IPv6 entities external to 3GPP. The 3GPP UE should support RFC 4941 [17a] and it should use RFC 4941 when choosing an interface identifier to generate the full IPv6 address for the initial generation process.

A 3GPP UE shall follow the recommendations for the IP Security set of functions in RFC 3316 [21] when a specific service requires such functions.

According to the procedures defined in TS 23.060 [2] and in TS 23.401 [27], when a UE is assigned an IPv6 prefix, it can change the global IPv6 address it is currently using via the mechanism defined in RFC 4941 [17a], or similar means, without updating the PS domain. Any application that requires full IP address knowledge shall provide a mechanism to get the latest IPv6 address when the IPv6 address in the UE has been changed. An example of such means is defined in TS 23.228 [11].

NOTE 1: RFC 3316 [21] does not make any recommendations on preferred transition and interoperability mechanisms between IPv4 and IPv6.

NOTE 2: An application may inhibit the use of RFC 4941 mechanisms for privacy but the mechanism to do this is not specified.