IPv6 Deployment Grows by 3000% in 5 Years

IPv6 deployment is increasing around the world, with over 9 million domain names and 23% of all networks advertising IPv6 connectivity.

IPv6 deployment of increased  by 3,000% since the beginning of World IPv6 Launch 5 years ago, according to the ISOC State of IPv6 Deployment 2017. shows IPv6 deployment is increasing around the world, with over 9 million domain names, out of over 330 million, and 23% of all networks advertising IPv6 connectivity.

Google reports 37 countries exceeding 5% of traffic, with new countries being added weekly. Akamai reports 7 countries whose IPv6 traffic exceeds 15%. In Japan, all three major mobile networks, NTT, KDDI, and Softbank, are deploying IPv6 this year, and in India, Reliance JIO’s deployment has driven measures of IPv6 traffic in the country to exceed 20%. The IPv4 Market Group comments that it expects IPv6 user count to exceed 50% world-wide in 2019, and with that, the start of the decline of the IPv4 address market.

Predictably, actual use of IPv6 waited until the IPv4 run-out had occured. At this writing, Google reports 37 countries using IPv6 for 5% or more of their interactions with them.

Figure 2. IPv6 adoption in selected countries
(Credit: Eric Vyncke)

For those who will have to move to IPv6, and haven’t yet started, the Internet Society’s core recommendations are to: (a) start now if you haven’t already, (b) use established RFP requirements like RIPE-554: Requirements for IPv6 in ICT Equipment, and (c) take advantage of existing IPv6 deployment information including the Internet Society’s Deploy360 Program.

The IPv6 protocol came out of a recognition, reported on by Frank Solensky to the IETF in August 1990, that the allocation rate of IPv4 address space was such that the Internet would run out of address space in less than five years. While this took longer, IPv4 numbers are scarce with the 5 Regional Internet Registries having no IPv4 addresses to allocate, retaining retain space only for allocation to new market entrants.

To download the State of IPv6 Deployment 2017 report from the Internet Society, go to:
https://www.internetsociety.org/doc/state-ipv6-deployment-2017