Hurricane Electric’s Martin Levy was recently interviewed for an article on IPv6 titled “Enabling IPv6, one step at a time”. From the article:
Where is the United States in the adoption of IPv6?
It depends on which metric you want to use. If you use the number of IP backbones that are enabled for v6, we’re getting there. It’s possible that Europe is slightly ahead of us. There has always been a perception that Japan has been IPv6 ready far longer than anyone else, and that may be the case for certain networks in Japan. But I think we’re doing pretty good in the U.S. If you measure how many end-users have access to v6, then we’re not as far along as other countries. But it’s very spotty, and it is also a case that the statistics may be too small to use for an accurate trend.
But I think we’re going to see major changes as we see consumer networks like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T start to adopt IPv6 not just for trial but for general usage by end-users. I also think that as a country, we are fairly far ahead in research and education networks in the university and the higher education environment.
What lessons have you learned in using IPv6?
Nothing is easy. Don’t get me wrong; I will always paint a positive picture. But I am fully aware that sometimes things take a long time.
There are two major lessons. The first one is that there is a fundamental difference between enabling v6 inside the core of the network [and] enabling it in all parts of the network in a ubiquitous manner. The second lesson has to do with the need to ensure that the network is as robust in the v6 as the v4.
