As you would expect, most of ICANN’s external services, including this blog, are available over IPv6 as well as IPv4. And at the request of the ICANN Board, a regular comparative measure of IPv6 use at the ICANN and IANA websites has been provided to them for months. The good news is that the trend from the measurement shows an increase in the use of the ICANN and IANA web sites using IPv6. IPv6 hits on our web sites in June were about 1.7% of all hits.
The peaks in IPv6 access, which is shown in red on the graph, closely correlate with ICANN meetings. IPv6 connectivity is provided as standard at ICANN meetings and lots of meeting attendees have been using it without knowing while using the free WiFi.
So, as the graph shows, we have had peaks in IPv6 access alongside the October 2009 ICANN meeting in Seoul, the March 2010 ICANN meeting in Nairobi and June’s ICANN meeting in Brussels. There was also a peak in January 2010, which we believe is associated with the IANA Business Continuity Exercise that took place on the 19th of January, thus users were preferring the IPv6 transport while IPv4 provision was in flux.
What is perhaps more heartening than the peaks associated with the ICANN meetings, is that the troughs in April and May 2010 are far less shallow than those seen in December 2009 and February 2010. There is growth in IPv6 traffic! While at the start of the process we had to use a magnifying lens to see the changes, they are definitely becoming more obvious.
ICANN will continue to assess the adoption of IPv6 worldwide and make reports at regular intervals. ICANN also encourages all organizations to make sure they are – or will be – implementing IPv6 on their networks.
