Arbor Networks, in partnership with more than ninety network services and content providers from around the world, has published the largest study to date of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) traffic on the Internet. IPv6 is intended to be the next primary communications protocol for packet-switched inter-networks.

The transition to IPv6 is considered important primarily because current projections indicate that there will be no more IPv4 addresses available within the next few years. The results of a year-long research project provide, for the first time, a global perspective on the amount of IPv6 traffic on the Internet.

IPv6 Report Highlights:

• The amount of aggregate inter-domain IPv6 Internet traffic appears to be increasing.
• IPv6 traffic is still a tiny percentage of overall Internet traffic. By one conservative estimate, by the end of July 2008, there was about 600 Mbps of inter-domain IPv6 traffic compared to 4 Tbps of IPv4 traffic. In other words, tunneled IPv6 traffic represented only 0.0026% of overall IPv4 traffic.
• The proportion of IPv6 vs. IPv4 traffic stayed roughly the same over the last year.