Six Years Since World Launch, IPv6 Now Dominant Internet Protocol for Many
RESTON, Va., and GENEVA (PRWEB) June 06, 2018 -- The Internet Society, the non-profit dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet, today released results of a report indicating widespread adoption of the newest Internet protocol, IPv6. Today marks the sixth anniversary of the World IPv6 Launch on 6 June 2012 when thousands of Internet service providers (ISPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and Web companies around the world came together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services.
Every device connected to the Internet requires an IP address to be identified and connected to other devices. The old IPv4 protocol had a physical limitation of 4.3 billion unique addresses. IPv6 offers 340 trillion, trillion, trillion unique addresses. IPv6 is paving the way for the explosion of smartphones, tablets, IoT devices, wearables and other Internet-enabled devices, fundamentally altering the way people, organizations and governments are connected around the world.
“IPv6 is now pervasive and growing fast in many networks and countries around the world,” said Internet Society Chief Internet Technology Officer, Olaf Kolkman. “It is increasingly seen as a competitive advantage, a market differentiator and an essential tool for forward-looking Internet applications and service providers of all kinds.”
Members of the worldwide Internet community are continuing to contribute to the increasing deployment and adoption of IPv6, both as a replacement for IPv4 and to expand available Internet address space. The Internet Society State of IPv6 Deployment report finds that:
• Many of the major network operators in the U.S., Europe and Asia have massively deployed IPv6. For example, in the U.S. T-Mobile has 93 percent, in India Reliance Jio has 87 percent, in the U.K. British Sky Broadcasting has 86 percent and in Belgium VOO has 73 percent IPv6 deployment.
• Nearly half a billion people use IPv6 among just the top 15 ISPs combined. India’s Reliance Jio has the most IPv6 users with 237 million, the United States’ Comcast is number two with 36 million and the United States’ AT&T is third with 30 million. Reliance Jio activated over 200 million subscribers with IPv6 connectivity in just nine months, between September 2016 and June 2017.
• IPv6 deployment is global, and the top 10 countries using the new protocol are Belgium, Greece, Germany, the U.S., Uruguay, India, Switzerland, Japan, Malaysia and Brazil. Belgium was the first country in the world where the majority of connections to IPv6-capable content providers used IPv6.
• 80 percent of smartphones in the US on the major cellular network operators (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon) use IPv6. Less than three years ago this was under 40 percent.
• In 2012, less than one in a hundred connections to Google services used IPv6. Today that number is nearly one in four.
• Many of the largest Internet content providers and content delivery networks provide IPv6 service by default. 28 percent of the Alexa Top 1000 websites are IPv6-enabled, including large streaming video services.
The Internet Society compiled data from several sources including Akamai Technologies, the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), Facebook and Google for its State of IPv6 Deployment report.
“Akamai is committed to supporting our customers and network partners with a smooth transition to IPv6,” said Erik Nygren, Fellow and Chief Architect, Akamai Technologies. “We are excited to see how far the Internet community has come in this long journey of changing the foundational technology underlying the Internet. While IPv6 is in some sense just a technical next step, it is also immensely important to the Internet’s continued growth as a scalable platform for innovation and economic development.”
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) developed IPv6, starting in the 1990s, to ensure the Internet can continue to grow. The IETF is a community of network designers, operators, vendors and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet.
The Internet Society’s State of IPv6 Deployment findings are here. More work is required to fully deploy IPv6 in all networks and countries around the world. The Internet Society’s core recommendations are to: (a) start now if you haven’t already, (b) use established requirements and best current practice documentation, and (c) take advantage of existing IPv6 deployment information including the Internet Society’s Deploy360 Programme.
About the Internet Society
Founded by Internet pioneers, the Internet Society (ISOC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet. Working through a global community of chapters and members, the Internet Society collaborates with a broad range of groups to promote the technologies that keep the Internet safe and secure, and advocates for policies that enable universal access. The Internet Society is also the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
Jaci Hendricks, Voxus PR, +1 (253) 444-5955, [email protected]
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