To ensure the Internet can continue to grow and connect billions more people and devices around the world, thousands of companies and millions of websites have now permanently enabled the next generation of Internet Protocol (IPv6) for their products and services. Participants in World IPv6 Launch include the four most visited websites in the world – Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Yahoo! – as well as home router manufacturers and Internet Service Providers in more than 100 countries. By making IPv6 the “new normal,” these companies are enabling millions of end users to enjoy its benefits without having to do anything themselves.
This year, World IPv6 Launch is a permanent commitment across the Internet industry, including ISPs and home networking equipment manufacturers around the world, laying the foundation to accelerate the deployment of IPv6 across the global Internet.
Major websites are permanently enabling IPv6 starting 6 June 2012 at 0000 UTC on their main websites.
ISPs will permanently enable IPv6 across a significant portion of their current and all new residential wireline subscribers. Home networking equipment manufacturers will enable IPv6 by default through their range of home router products, and recent commitments to IPv6 by companies beyond websites demonstrates a broader support of the new Internet Protocol.
This is imperative as the last blocks of the 4.3 billion IP addresses enabled by the current Internet Protocol (IPv4) were assigned to the Regional Internet Registries in February 2011. Already there is no remaining IPv4 address space to be distributed in the Asia Pacific region, and very soon the rest of the globe will follow. IPv4 address space is expected to run out in Europe this year, in the U.S. next year, and in Latin America and Africa in 2014. IPv6 provides more than 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses (an essentially unlimited number), which will help connect the billions of people that are not connected today, allow a wide range of devices to connect directly with one another, and help ensure the Internet can continue its current growth rate indefinitely.
What can Internet users do to get ready for World IPv6 Launch?
As ISPs enable IPv6 and home gateway products support it, users at home with modern operating systems and devices will start using IPv6 automatically. The majority of users shouldn’t notice the transition at all. IPv4 access will still be available as companies permanently enable IPv6 on their products and services.
Afterall ... there's no place like ::1 