IPv6 Adoption in 2026

5 days ago

IPv6 was defined in RFC1883 in December 1995, now 30 years old, yet adoption remains low.
Akamai, Cloudflare, and Google report 40-45% IPv6 adoption in HTTP traffic, with patterns suggesting higher usage on mobile/residential networks.
Personal domain data shows only 20% IPv6 HTTP traffic, 3.43% SMTP, and 2.34% DNS, highlighting poor adoption.
Analysis of Top 1M Domains reveals 70% of name servers have IPv6 addresses, but only 35.32% of domains are IPv6-enabled for HTTP.
SMTP IPv6 adoption is worse, with fewer than half of the Top 1M Domains' mail servers supporting IPv6.
Conservative industry practices and outdated configurations contribute to the slow IPv6 adoption.
Educational institutions' failure to integrate IPv6 into curricula perpetuates the cycle of neglect and underuse.
Despite efforts, universal IPv6 adoption remains elusive, likened to the perennial 'Linux on the Desktop' challenge.

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