CircleID

According to Google native IPv6 penetration has structurally crossed the 0.2% mark as a percentage of total traffic on the Internet in early 2011. This may not seem much, but it has doubled in a year, in an Internet that is still growing exponentially.

Tunneled traffic has decreased, which is good. Yet, it looks like native traffic is only replacing this, not adding to it. This could mean that native IPv6 is only gaining share within a stabilizing population.

Daily variations indicate a bias towards home usage, as percentages are higher on weekends, although this bias has decreased somewhat over the years.

Let us contrast this with the AMS-IX statistics which appear to be flat line. This is by ethernet type, which is likely to be native IPv6 traffic rather than tunneled. One hypotheses is that IPv6 penetration grows by regions adopting it, other regions would then be catching up to the penetration levels in Europe.

Overall, the message is mixed. IPv6 is growing in maturity, but not necessarily in adoption.

What is your reflection on this?

By Peter HJ van Eijk, Cloud Computing Coach, Author and Speaker. Visit the blog maintained by Peter HJ van Eijk here.

Related topics: IPv6