IPv4 addresses are nearing full allocation, with over 92% of all
available addresses already in use in March 2010. Global adoption of
IPv6 - the long-term solution to the address space problem - would
require a major increase in its use, in little time, and significant
mobilization across all parts of the Internet. This report shows that
while IPv6 use seems to be growing slightly faster than IPv4, IPv6 is
not being deployed sufficiently quickly to intercept the estimated IPv4
exhaustion date, which could stifle creativity and the deployment of new
services.
...
One of the major challenges for all stakeholders in thinking about the
future of the Internet is its ability to scale to connect billions of
people and devices. The Internet Protocol (IP) specifies how
communications take place between one device and another through an
addressing system. Each device must have an IP address in order to
communicate. However, existing best projections are that the currently
used version of the Internet Protocol, IPv4, will run out of previously
unallocated addresses in 2012.1 IPv4 addresses are nearing full
allocation, with just 8% of addresses remaining in March 2010.
When IPv4 addresses run out, operators and companies must support IPv6
in order to add new customers or devices to their networks. Otherwise,
they will need complex and expensive layers of network address
translation (NAT) to share scarce IPv4 addresses among multiple users
and devices. For this reason, the timely deployment of the newer version
of the Internet Protocol (IPv6) by network operators and
content/application providers is an increasing priority for all Internet
stakeholders. In terms of public policy, IPv6 plays an important role
in enabling innovation and scalability of the Internet. In addition,
security, interoperability and competition issues are involved with the
depletion of IPv4.
The objective of this report is to investigate indicators of IPv6
deployment, to help raise awareness among policy makers of the level of
IPv6 deployment on the Internet. Various indicators are presented in
this report, each of which offers information on a specific aspect of
IPv6 deployment and from a particular vantage point. The difficulty of
such a measurement exercise and the many caveats associated with each
indicator are underscored.
Today, IPv6 is still a small proportion of the Internet. However, IPv6
use is growing faster than continuing IPv4 use, albeit from a low base.
And several large-scale deployments are taking place or planned.
Overall, the Internet is still in the early stages of a transition
whereby end hosts, networks, services, and middleware are shifting from
IPv4-only to support both IPv4 and IPv6. During a potentially long
transition, both IPv4 and IPv6 will co-exist in "dual-stack" operation
on most of the Internet, although some green-field IPv6-only deployments
will also take place for new usage models such as mobile Internet or
sensor networks deployments.
To download this report in full, see:
www.oecd.org/dataoecd/48/51/44953210.pdf
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