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During the recent RIPE meeting in Dubai, Google presented its results of a study on "measuring the current state of IPv6 for ordinary users." And the results are surprising. While an earlier study by Arbor Networks showed only 0.0026 percent of all traffic was IPv6 enabled, Google determined that world wide, 0.238 percent of their users' systems have IPv6 enabled and prefer to use IPv6 over IPv4 where possible, Ars Technica reports.

The results were obtained by enrolling a small fraction of ordinary Google users into an "IPv6 experiment", where their browser was asked to perform a background request.

IPv6 connectivity by country — combined data, Aug-Oct 2008, lower bound of 68% confidence interval. Source: Google Inc.

Top five IPv6-using countries, according to Google's study, are: Russia 0.76%, France 0.65%, Ukraine 0.64%, Norway 0.49%, and the US 0.45%. Stats also indicate China being currently at 0.24% penetration and Japan 0.15%. While it not shown why Russia and Ukraine have the highest level of IPv6 users, an ISP in France is said to be responsible for the courtiers IPv6 usage due to its capable home rounters and in U.S., Apple's MacOS X support for 6to4 system (allowing IPv6 packets to be transmitted over an IPv4 network).

Read full story: Ars Technica

Related topics: IPv6