Lably
Skip to content

IPv6 deployment

Overview of the deployment of IPv6

  • 34 min read
  • 8 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Voice over IP, Germany and India

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.

As of April 2026, Google's statistics shows use of IPv6 by its global user base at around 45–50% 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 at around 50%. Russia and Australia have over 30% adoption, while China has less than 5% and some countries such as Sudan and Turkmenistan have 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.

APNIC publishes statistics for worldwide adoption of IPv6 over time. This also includes per-country data.

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:

On 28 March 2026, IPv6 traffic to Google exceeded 50% for the first time, marking a historic milestone in the transition away from IPv4. This followed years of steady growth, with global adoption standing at approximately 43% in early 2025 before accelerating. Country-level adoption varies widely, with France (73%), India (72%), and Saudi Arabia (65%) among the leaders, while Italy (17%), Spain (10%), and Egypt (4%) lag significantly behind.

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

Sign in to keep reading

7 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Computing and communication