/ Unsplash / Clem Onojeghuo
Telecoms, providers and IT companies
The official launch of the sixth version of the protocol took place eight years ago. Almost immediately, telecom operators and Internet providers began to use it - Australian Internode, Dutch XS4ALL, German Deutsche Telekom, as well as American AT&T and Comcast. The latter have more than 60% of IPv6 traffic today , while Deutsche Telekom has 35% .
A little later, the site owners joined the telecommunications companies. Currently, IPv6 is supported by about 20% of resources from the Alexa 500 list. If we talk about all sites on the network, then this figure will be less- 16.3%. IT companies such as Google and Facebook are also switching to IPv6. Since 2018, more than half of American social media users have been using the new protocol. Facebook's IPv6 traffic is also growing in Asia - Vietnam and Taiwan.
Fresh materials from our blog on Habré:
Government and research organizations are also adopting IPv6. Back in 2010, CERN began deploying virtual machines that support the new protocol - their total number exceeded 130 thousand. Although the volume of data transferred remains small - 2.5 GB of traffic passes through IPv6 networks per day .
Even the UN is promoting IPv6. One of the divisions of the organization proposed a migration plan for government agencies. However, we note that the IT community has criticized this initiative - primarily because the developed model transfers IPv4 problems to a new shell.
We talked about the situation in more detail in one of the previous materials .
What about regulation
The new generation protocol is being promoted not only by IT companies and telecoms, but also by the governments of individual states. Thus, Belarus became the first country in the world to secure support for IPv6 at the legislative level. From the beginning of the year, all Internet providers are required to start working with the new protocol. So far , about 15% of users work with IPv6 , although this figure periodically increases to 30% . It can be expected that these values will only grow.
/ Unsplash / Christopher Burns There are
similar initiatives in the United States. In early March, the country's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) publisheda document according to which at least 80% of the resources of state organizations must begin to support IPv6 by the end of 2025. By the way, the US government has been implementing the new protocol since 2005. The process is slow, however, as ministries cite security concerns and potential disruptions to public services. The 2020 document could turn the tide and predetermine the growth in the number of sites using the new protocol.
Reading on the topic from the corporate blog VAS Experts: