IPv6 traffic crosses the 50% mark

Post by agwa » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 3:48 PM UTC

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #381

agwa wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt your experience, but I wouldn't expect it to continue. I don't think Tuna-Fish is correct that "most" of the IPv4 world is behind CGNAT, but that does appear to be the trend. You can't even assume hosting providers give their subscribers their own IPv4 addresses anymore. On the other hand, there's a chance providers like Linode will eventually wise up and start giving subscribers their own /64 - there a…

> I don't think Tuna-Fish is correct that "most" of the IPv4 world is behind CGNAT ~60%+ of internet traffic is mobile, which is ~100% behind CGNAT. On desktop, only ~20% of US and European web traffic uses CGNAT, but in China that number is ~80%, in India ~70% and varies among African countries but is typically well over 70%, with it being essentially universal in some countries. Overall, something a bit over 80% of…

Post by bananamogul » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 3:50 PM UTC

stackghost wrote: post #35

usui wrote: post #5

It has barely hit 50% and it's already plateauing. This adoption rate is ridiculous despite basically all network interfaces supporting it. I thought I would see IPv6 take over in my lifetime as the default for platforms to build on but I can see I was wrong. Enterprise and commercial companies are literally going to hold back internet progress around 60 to 75 years because it's in their best interest to ensure users…

Is there a reason why adoption has been so abysmally slow? Like surely all the big players have updated their networking equipment by now, and surely every piece of enterprise-grade kit sold in the last 20 years has supported v6. The only arguments I've ever heard against ipv6 that made any sense are that: 1: it's hard to remember addresses, which is mayyyyybe valid for homelab enthusiast types, but for medium scale…

Post by sedatk » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 3:51 PM UTC

ff317 wrote: post #402

Random related data point: for HTTP requests to Wikipedia (and related) for the past 7d, the IP protocol split is roughly 35% IPv6 / 65% IPv4. (this is counting by-request, so heavy usage from a small number of IPv4s can skew it).

Post by sethops1 » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

Galanwe wrote: post #241

FridgeSeal wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a place where they refused to run it _anywhere_ because a couple of people were insistent that it was “insecure”.

... and they were right. v6 adoption is often an all or nothing, because if you run both stacks, you have to ensure they are consistent. While you can reasonably do it on your home LAN, doing it across an entire infrastructure is the worst. Now you have to make sure all your subnets, routing, VLANs, firewall rules, etc work exactly the same in two protocols that have very little in common. It is the equivalent of shi…

Post by bananamogul » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

mattstir wrote: post #276

shrubble wrote: post #245

I am aware of at least 2 telecoms, one publicly traded, that have very little to no IPv6 in their core networks and only use IPv6 when they have to. Personally I think the design of IPv6 offers very little benefit; supposedly the Dept of Defense/Dept of War holds some 175 million IPv4 addresses, with other companies also holding large allocations - that should have been addressed 25-30 years ago as an administrative…

To what end though? 4 billion addresses is not enough on its own, even if they were reallocated from hoarders. I think that NAT and especially CGNAT have been very detrimental to the shape of the internet, where it's nearly impossible to self-host a public service without a VPN of some kind. Needing to pay some company for the ability to host a server that isn't behind NAT is a barrier that doesn't need to exist when…