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Overview of the deployment of IPv6 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The deployment of IPv6, the latest version of the Internet Protocol (IP), has been in progress since the mid-2000s. IPv6 was designed as the successor protocol for IPv4 with an expanded addressing space. IPv4, which has been in use since 1982, is in the final stages of exhausting its unallocated address space, but still carries most Internet traffic.[1]
By 2011, all major operating systems in use on personal computers and server systems had production-quality IPv6 implementations. Mobile telephone networks present a large deployment field for Internet-connected devices in which voice is provisioned as a voice over IP (VoIP) service. In 2009, the US cellular operator Verizon released technical specifications for devices to operate on its 4G networks.[2] The specification mandates IPv6 operation according to the 3GPP Release 8 Specifications (March 2009), and deprecates IPv4 as an optional capability.[2]
As of May 2024[update] Google's statistics show IPv6 availability of its global user base at around 41–46% depending on the day of the week (greater on weekends).[3] Adoption is uneven across countries and Internet service providers. Countries including France, Germany and India now run the majority of their traffic to Google over IPv6, with other countries including the United States, Brazil and Japan approaching 50%. However, Russia and China have less than 10% adoption, with some countries such as Sudan and Turkmenistan having less than 1% IPv6 adoption.[4]
Tools such as 6rd, conceived by Rémi Després, have been developed to enable IPv6 rapid deployment.
Google publishes statistics on IPv6 adoption among Google users. A graph of IPv6 adoption since 2008 and a map of IPv6 deployment by country are available.[5][6]
Akamai publishes by-country and by-network statistics on IPv6 adoption for traffic it sees on its global Content Distribution Network (CDN). This set of data also shows graphs for each country and network over time.[7]
A global view into the history of the growing IPv6 routing tables can be obtained with the SixXS Ghost Route Hunter.[8] This tool provided a list of all allocated IPv6 prefixes until 2014 and marks with colors the ones that were actually being announced into the Internet BGP tables. When a prefix was announced, it means that the ISP at least can receive IPv6 packets for their prefix.
The integration of IPv6 on existing network infrastructure may be monitored from other sources, for example:
A few organizations are involved with international IPv6 test and evaluation, ranging from the United States Department of Defense to the University of New Hampshire.
Year | Major development and availability milestones |
---|---|
1996 | IPv6 support in the Linux kernel was originally developed by Pedro Roque and integrated into mainline at the end of 1996, which was one of the earliest implementations of an IPv6 stack in the world.[13] |
6bone (an IPv6 virtual network for testing) is started. | |
1997 | By the end of 1997 IBM's AIX 4.3 is the first commercial platform supporting IPv6.[14][15] |
Also in 1997, Early Adopter Kits for DEC's operating systems, Tru64 and OpenVMS, are made available.[16] | |
1998 | Microsoft Research[17] releases its first experimental IPv6 stack. This support is not intended for use in a production environment. |
1999 | In February, the IPv6 Forum[18] is founded by the IETF Deployment WG to drive deployment worldwide. This results in the creation of regional and local IPv6 Task Forces. |
1999 | Implementation of the first IPv6 tunnel broker, by Ivano Guardini that also contributed the RFC:3053, at CSELT. |
2000 | Production-quality BSD support for IPv6 becomes generally available in early to mid-2000 in FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD via the KAME project.[19] |
Microsoft releases an IPv6 technology preview version for Windows 2000 in March 2000.[17] | |
Sun Solaris supports IPv6 in Solaris 8 in February.[20] | |
Compaq ships IPv6 with Tru64.[16] | |
2001 | In January, Compaq ships IPv6 with OpenVMS.[16] |
Cisco Systems introduces IPv6 support on Cisco IOS routers and L3 switches.[21] | |
HP introduces IPv6 with HP-UX 11i v1.[22] | |
On April 23, 2001, the European Commission launches the European IPv6 Task Force[23] | |
2002 | Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 SP1 have limited IPv6 support for research and testing since at least 2002. |
Microsoft Windows XP (2001) supports IPv6 for developmental purposes. In Windows XP SP1 (2002) and Windows Server 2003, IPv6 is included as a core networking technology, suitable for commercial deployment.[24] | |
IBM z/OS supports IPv6 since version 1.4 (general availability in September 2002).[25] | |
2003 | Apple Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther" (2003) supports IPv6 which is enabled by default.[26] |
2004 | In July, ICANN announces that IPv6 address records for the Japan (jp) and Korea (kr) country code top-level domain nameservers are visible in the DNS root server zone files with serial number 2004072000. The IPv6 records for France (fr) are added later. This makes IPv6 DNS publicly operational. |
2005 | Linux 2.6.12 removes experimental status from its IPv6 implementation.[27] |
2007 | Microsoft Windows Vista (2007) supports IPv6 which is enabled by default.[24] |
Apple's AirPort Extreme 802.11n base station includes an IPv6 gateway in its default configuration. It uses 6to4 tunneling and manually configured static tunnels.[28] (Note: 6to4 was disabled by default in later firmware revisions.) | |
On March 8, 2007, IPv6 Forum, Stealth Communications and CounterPath Solutions, announced worldwide VoIP interoperability using IPv6 and Asterisk (PBX)[29][30][31] | |
2008 | On February 4, 2008, IANA adds AAAA records for the IPv6 addresses of six root name servers.[32][33] With this transition, it is now possible to resolve domain names using only IPv6. |
On March 12, 2008, the IETF does an hour-long IPv4 blackout at its meeting as an opportunity to capture informal experience data to inform protocol design work going forward;[34] this led to many fixes in operating systems and applications. | |
On May 27, 2008, the European Commission publish their Action Plan for the deployment of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) in Europe,[35] with the aim of making IPv6 available to 25% of European users by 2010.[36] | |
2011 | On June 8, 2011, the Internet Society, in conjunction with several large companies and organizations, held World IPv6 Day, a global 24-hour test of IPv6.[37][38] |
2012 | On June 6, 2012, the Internet Society, in conjunction with many large companies and organizations, held World IPv6 Launch Day, a global permanent deployment of IPv6.[39][40] |
2013 | On November 22, 2013, the Xbox One becomes the first dedicated video game console from a major company to support IPv6.[41] |
By 2011, all major operating systems in use on personal computers and server systems had production-quality IPv6 implementations.[42] Microsoft Windows has supported IPv6 since Windows 2000,[43] and in production-ready state beginning with Windows XP. Windows Vista and later have improved IPv6 support.[44] macOS since Panther (10.3), Linux 2.6, FreeBSD, and Solaris also have mature production implementations. Some implementations of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file transfer protocol make use of IPv6 to avoid NAT issues common for IPv4 private networks.[45]
In the early 2000s, governments increasingly required support for IPv6 in new equipment. The US government, for example, specified in 2005 that the network backbones of all federal agencies had to be upgraded to IPv6 by June 30, 2008; this was completed before the deadline.[46][47][48][49] In addition, the US government in 2010 required federal agencies to provide native dual-stacked IPv4/IPv6 access to external/public services by 2012, and internal clients were to utilize IPv6 by 2014.[50] On November 19, 2020, the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the latest US federal government IPv6-only policy in its memorandum (M-21-07) directing all federal government agencies to complete at least 80% of the transition from IPv4 to the single stack of IPv6 by 2025.[51] Progress on the US government's external facing IPv6 services is tracked by NIST. The government of the People's Republic of China implemented a five-year plan for deployment of IPv6 called the China Next Generation Internet (see below).
On 7 March 2013, the Internet Engineering Task Force created a working group for IPv4 sunset in preparation for protocol changes that could be used to support sunset/shutdown of remnant IPv4 networks.[52][53] However, in May 2018 this working group was closed as no immediate work could be identified due to the slow transition to IPv6.[54]
The Internet Engineering Task Force expects IPv6 to coexist with IPv4 as it is considered impractical to transition to IPv6 in the short term.[55][56] The coexistence is expected to be based on dual-stack, tunneling or translation mechanisms.[57] Dual-stack implementations required two parallel logical networks, increasing cost and complexity of the network.[58] IPv4 networks are expected to slowly transition into segmented subnetworks using IPv4 Residual Deployment.[59]
The slow transition to IPv6 has caused significant resentment in the Internet community.[60][61]
As a result, many larger enterprises, such as Microsoft, are transitioning to phasing out IPv4 and moving towards IPv6 Single-Stack within the company. In a recent blog, the company describes their heavily translated IPv4 network as "potentially fragile", "operationally challenging", and with regard to dual-stack operations (i.e. those running IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously) "complex".[62]
AnwarNet (www.anwarnet.dz); AfriNIC has allocated range of IPv6 address space to AnwarNet. AnwarNet started IPV6 services in 2011.
As of April 2021, Brazil has 38.4% IPv6 adoption.[6] IPv6 adoption in the country was boosted in 2015 when the Brazilian telecommunications agency, Anatel, announced that all Internet operators and service providers would be required to provide IPv6 addresses to consumers. This was one of a number of initiatives to increase the speed of deployment.[83]
Has constructed a research center to study the possibilities of adopting IPv6 in the country. The center will operate alongside another facility, which is equipped with an IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer.[84]
Since 2015, the ISP Blizoo enabled IPv6 for many home customers.
At the end of 2016, the ISP ComNet Bulgaria Holding Ltd. has provided complete IPv6 support for all customers and households within company network in Bulgaria.[85]
IPv6 deployment is slow but ongoing, with major Canadian ISPs (notably Bell Canada) lacking in support for its residential customers, and the majority of their business customers (including server packages). According to Google's statistics, Canada reached an IPv6 adoption level of 39.66% as of May 2022.[3]
The China Next Generation Internet (CNGI, 中国下一代互联网) project is an ongoing plan initiated by the Chinese government with the purpose of gaining a significant position in the development of the Internet through the early adoption of IPv6. China showcased CNGI's IPv6 infrastructure during the 2008 Summer Olympics, being the first time a major world event has had a presence on the IPv6 Internet.[99] At the time of the event, it was believed that the Olympics provided the largest showcase of IPv6 technology since the inception of IPv6.[100] The deployment of IPv6 was widespread in all related applications, from data networking and camera transmissions for sporting events, to civil applications, such as security cameras and taxis. The events were streamed live over the Internet and networked cars were able to monitor traffic conditions readily, all network operations of the Games being conducted using IPv6.[101]
Also, the CERNET (China Education and Research NETwork, 中国教育和科研计算机网, 教育网) set up native IPv6 (CERNET2), and since then many academic institutions in China joined CERNET2 for IPv6 connectivity. CERNET-2 is probably the widest deployment of IPv6 in China. It is managed and operated jointly by 25 universities.[102] Students in Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, for example, get native IPv6.[103][104]
In 2017, China issued an "Action Plan for Promoting Large-scale Deployment of Internet Protocol Version 6" where it encouraged a nationwide adoption of the IPv6 network. Outlined in the plan, China had set goals to develop a next-generation internet technical system and industrial ecosystem with independent intellectual property rights in 5 to 10 years, and aimed at having the largest IPv6 network in the world by the end of 2025.[105]
In 2018, US researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology categorized China as being part of a group of 169 countries that had little IPv6 traffic. As of 2021, Akamai's latest State of the Internet Report asserts an IPv6 adoption level of 23.5% among Chinese internet connections.[106]
In July 2021, China announced plans to complete a national IPv6 rollout by 2030. It is the only country known to advocate towards a single-stack network and had earlier in May 2021, overtaken India in becoming the Number 1 country in terms of having the most IPv6 addresses in the world, with 528 million.[107]
As of June 2023, the country has a deployment ratio around 24%, according to Google and around 20% to APNIC stats.
As of June 2023, the country has only 10% IPv6 traffic, according to Google stats.[3]
A web page (in Danish) follows national IPv6 deployment.[111]
The ISP Fullrate has begun offering IPv6 to its customers, on the condition that their router (provided by the ISP itself) is compatible.[112] If the router is of a different version, the customer has to request a new router.
Several other small ISP have already begun implementing the protocol as well as 3, the smallest mobile provider.
Estonian Telekom is providing native IPv6 access on residential and business broadband connections since September 2014. According to Google's statistics, Estonia has reached an IPv6 adoption level of 32% by June 2023.[3]
FICORA (Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority), the NIC for the .fi top level domain, has added IPv6 address to DNS servers, and allows entering IPv6 address when registering domains.[113] The registration service domain.fi for new domains is also available over IPv6.
A small Finnish ISP Nebula has offered IPv6 access since 2007.[114]
FICORA held national IPv6 day on June 9, 2015.[115] At that time Elisa and DNA Oyj started providing IPv6 on mobile subscriptions, and Telia Company (via 6rd) and DNA Oyj (native) started providing IPv6 on fixed-line connections.
According to Google's statistics, Finland has reached an IPv6 adoption level of 48% as of June 2023[update].[116]
As of May 2023, France has 74% IPv6 traffic according to Google, and 65% according to APNIC.[129]
According to Google's statistics, Germany has reached an IPv6 adoption level of 68% by June 2023.[130][3]
Date | Entity | Description |
---|---|---|
2004 | Hong Kong Internet Exchange | Hong Kong Internet Exchange (HKIX), the local Internet exchange point, started to operate its IPv6 exchange (HK6IX). |
2006 | Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation | The Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation, the administrator of the .hk domain, started offering IPv6 domain name services. |
2008 | Hong Kong government | Hong Kong government enhanced the Government Backbone Network to inter-connect the systems of bureaux and departments using IPv6. |
2009 | Hong Kong government | Hong Kong government enhanced the Government Internet Gateway systems so that the public can access over 200 government websites, including GovHK using IPv6 and use Internet mails to communicate with over 60 government bureaux and departments using IPv6. Also, government users can access IPv6 resources through the Internet. |
2012 | Hong Kong Observatory | The Hong Kong Observatory launched the IPv6 network time service.[148][149] |
2012 | Hong Kong government | Hong Kong government initiated the Next Generation GovWiFi Programme[150] to provide better and faster free Wi-Fi service, which supported IPv6, for the general public.[151] |
2013 | goIPv6 Consortium[152] | The goIPv6 Consortium introduced free IPv6 tunneling service for Hong Kong users to connect to the IPv6 Internet through their existing IPv4 network connection.[153] |
In Hungary Externet was the first ISP starting deploying IPv6 on its network in 2008 August.[154] The service was commercially available since 2009 May.[155][156]
Magyar Telekom was running tests on its production environments since the beginning of 2009. Free customer trials started on November 2, 2009, for those on ADSL or Fiber Optic.[157][158] Customers are given a /128 via DHCP-ND unless they register their DUID in which case they receive a /56 – using a static configuration results in a single /64.
According to information on telecompaper.com,[159] UPC Hungary will start deploying IPv6 in mid-2013, finishing it in 2013. The plan has not materialized until the end of 2015.[160]
In 2015, December RCS&RDS (Digi) has enabled native dual-stack IPv6 (customers receive dynamic /64 prefixes) for its FTTB/H customers.[161][162][163][164] In November the same year UPC Hungary introduced DS Lite(with private IPv4 addresses)[165] which can be enabled on a customer-to-customer basis if the customer asks for it.
Magyar Telekom deployed dual-stack IPv6 (using dynamic /56 prefixes on DSL and GPON and static /56 prefixes on DOCSIS) for all of its wired (and for all of its compatible mobile) customers in October 2016.[166][167][168][169][170]
According to the statistics of APNIC, IPv6 use in Hungary as of 2018 December has reached around 20%.[171]
According to Google's IPv6 statistics the adoption level in Hungary as of April 2022 is 42%.[3]
According to Google's statistics, India has reached an IPv6 adoption level of around 68.94% in January 2023.[3]
As of 2022, APNIC placed India at more than 75% preferring IPv6.[172]
Growth of IPv6 in Ireland as seen by Google.
According to Google's statistics, Italy had an IPv6 adoption level of 12.4% by June 2023.[3]
According to Google's statistics, Japan had an IPv6 adoption level of 43.79% by April 2022.[3]
The LITNET academic & research network has supported IPv6 since 2001. Most commercial ISPs have not publicly deployed IPv6 yet.
According to Google's statistics, Luxembourg reached an IPv6 adoption level of 36% by July 2020.[3]
In 2012, surveys conducted by the New Zealand IPv6 Task Force indicated that awareness of IPv6 had reached a near-universal level among New Zealand's large public- and private-sector organizations, with adoption mostly occurring as part of normal network refresh cycles. Most of New Zealand's ISP and carrier community have a test environment for IPv6 and many[quantify] have started bringing IPv6 products and services on-stream.[213] An increasing number of New Zealand government websites are available over IPv6, including those of the Ministry of Defence (New Zealand), Ministry for Primary Industries (New Zealand) and the Department of Internal Affairs.
The government is in process of upgrading its facilities.[215] Globe Telecom has already set in motion the transition of its core IP network to IPv6, noting that it is now fully prepared even as the Internet runs out of IPv4 addresses. Globe claims it is the first local telecommunication company to test IPv6 with Department of Science and Technology (Philippines). In some cases, like test networks or users, IPv6 or both may be present.[216] Since then, Globe Telecom has successfully deployed IPv6 in 2020 on its 5G network[217] and in 2021 on its fiber and 4G network.[218]
The Sudanese IPv6 task Force SDv6TF was formed in 2010 to fellow the implementation of IPv6 migration plan (2011–2015).[241]
By November 2012, all telecom operators are becoming IPv6 enabled, this was tested for the first time at the AFRINIC-17 meeting held in Khartoum.[242]
SudREN[243] (Sudanese Research and Education Network) is the first ISP to provide native IPv6 connectivity of the member institution. By August 2014, SudREN.edu.sd is fully IPv6 Enabled. Two certification received from IPv6 Forum,[244] for WWW and ISP Enabled Logos.
Operators offering native IPv6 access for business clients and collocation customers include Tele2 and Phonera.
Started deploying IPv6 in 2010. In 2011, ATI (Tunisian Internet Agency) obtained a new IPv6 block from AFRINIC (2c0f:fab0::/28). In 2013–2015, Gnet (Global Net), and CIMSP (Computing Departement of Health Ministry) received IPv6 prefixes from AFRINIC. Deployment of an IPv6 tunnel between ATI and HE (Hurricane Electric). In 2016, CCK (Centre de Calcul El Khawarizmi) obtains its own IPv6 (/32) block from AFRINIC. In 2016, ISET Charguia (Higher Institute of Technologies in Tunisia) deployed its IPv6 network as end user.
Some IPv6 implementation has taken place.
According to Google's statistics, United Kingdom has reached an IPv6 adoption level of 43.55% as of April 2022.[3]
In the United States the majority of smartphones use IPv6, but only a small percent of computers and tablets use IPv6. As of April 2022[update], 46.2% of Google users in the US use IPv6.[3]
Date | Entity | Description |
---|---|---|
2000 | Stealth Communications | Stealth Communications (AS8002) has been providing production IPv6 since 2000 when it received its pTLA status on 6bone.[262] The company later received its sTLA allocation from ARIN in 2001, making it the 12th organization at that time to receive production IPv6 addressing in North America.[263][264] |
2005 | Sonic.net | Sonic.net offers partial support for IPv6. They assign a /60 to any customer requesting address space and deliver the IPv6 packets over a 6in4 tunnel.[265] |
2008 | Department of Defense | As with IPv4, the Department of Defense holds a larger IPv6 allocation than any other entity, a /13 block, enough to create almost 2.3 quadrillion (2.3×1015) local area networks, 64 times as many as the next largest entity.[266] |
2008 | Hurricane Electric | Hurricane Electric (AS6939),[267] an early IPv6 adopter and maintains a native IPv6 backbone and as of 2008[update] was one of the largest IPv6 connectivity and hosting providers in the United States. It was the first IPv6 backbone operator in the world to reach 200 IPv6 BGP adjacencies. Through its IPv6 tunnel broker service,[268] Hurricane also provides free IPv6 connectivity to users in the United States and in several other countries. |
2011 | Comcast | Comcast started IPv6 pilot market deployment in 2011.[269][270] |
2011 | Time Warner Cable | Time Warner Cable was conducting IPv6 trials for their customers from September 2011.[271] |
2011 | AT&T | AT&T started testing their networks with IPv6 in 2006.[272] and started rolling out IPv6 to customers with compatible CPEs in Q4 2011.[273] |
2012 | US Department of Education | US Department of Education (ED) became the first cabinet-level agency to deploy IPv6 on its DNS services across its 17 .gov domains on August 5, 2012.[274] |
2012 | Google Fiber | Google Fiber launched with IPv6 support in 2012. |
2012 | Charter Communications | Charter Communications offers IPv6 access to all of its customers via a freely accessible IPv6 rapid deployment server since at least March 2012.[275] |
2012 | CenturyLink | CenturyLink offered IPv6 access to all of its customers since at least 2012.[276] |
2013 | T-Mobile | T-Mobile has made IPv6 its default phone configuration for all new Android 4.3+ devices.[277] using 464XLAT.[278] As of December 2013, phones configured by default for IPv6 / 464XLAT include the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Light, MetroPCS Samsung Mega, and the Google Nexus 5.[279] |
2013 | Verizon Wireless | As of June 2013, over 31%[280] of all users on Verizon Wireless had IPv6. |
2016 | Verizon Wireless | As of June 2016, over 72%[281] of all users on Verizon Wireless had IPv6. |
2017 | Hurricane Electric | Hurricane Electric (AS6939) becomes the first Internet backbone in the world to reach 4000 IPv6 BGP adjacencies.[282] |
As of January 2021[3]
The Internet Society promoted June 8, 2011, as "World IPv6 Day".[283] The event was described as a "test drive" for full IPv6 rollouts.[284]
The Internet Society declared June 6, 2012, to be the date for "World IPv6 Launch", with participating major websites enabling IPv6 permanently, participating ISPs offering IPv6 connectivity,[285] and participating router manufacturers offering devices enabled for IPv6 by default.[285][286]
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