World IPv6 Launch set a threshold of 1% IPv6 traffic measured by major content providers (Google, Facebook and Yahoo!) for network operator participants to meet. Many individual network operators took up this challenge and met it (see our measurements page for more details).

The global Internet has now passed an even more significant milestone with Google now reporting that the percentage of users accessing Google over native IPv6 regularly exceeds 1% and continues to rise. This number indicates the cumulative impact of widespread and growing network operator deployment and enablement of IPv6 services to their subscribers on one large content provider. Mark Townsley of Cisco has written a nice article which outlines the importance and significance of this event, noting that, “If this trend continues, [IPv6 user activity] will double again by mid next year and could break past 10% by the end of 2014.”

It is worth noting that for operators that have already widely deployed and enabled IPv6 to their subscribers and where those subscribers are largely IPv6 capable themselves, IPv6 traffic levels in excess of 50% are already observed and reported in our measurements. The state of IPv6 is clear – launched and gathering momentum rapidly!