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.
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. The specification mandates IPv6 operation according to the 3GPP Release 8 Specifications (March 2009), and deprecates IPv4 as an optional capability.
Google's statistics show IPv6 availability of its global user base at around 39–43% depending on the day of the week (greater on weekends). 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 Spain, Sudan and Turkmenistan having less than 1% IPv6 adoption.
Deployment tools and evaluation
Rapid deployment tools
Tools such as 6rd, conceived by Rémi Després, have been developed to enable IPv6 rapid deployment.
Statistics and monitoring
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.
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.
A global view into the history of the growing IPv6 routing tables can be obtained with the SixXS Ghost Route Hunter. 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: Regional Internet registries (RIR) IPv6 prefix allocation IPv6 transit services Japan ISP IPv6 services
Testing, evaluation, and certification
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.
The US DoD Joint Interoperability Test Command DoD IPv6 Product Certification Program University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory involvement in the IPv6 Ready Logo Program SATSIX
Major milestones
Operating system support
By 2011, all major operating systems in use on personal computers and server systems had production-quality IPv6 implementations. Microsoft Windows has supported IPv6 since Windows 2000, and in production-ready state beginning with Windows XP. Windows Vista and later have improved IPv6 support. 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.
Government encouragement
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. 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. On November 19, 2020, the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the latest U. S. 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. 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).