Hi, Fred:
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Thanks for sharing your references to IPv6 statistics.
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However, you might have looked this topic too deeply and missed the overview. Through our study of EzIP, we have discovered two aspects of this topic that frequently mislead readers:
A. IPv6 equipment Capability vs. IPv6 traffic Volume: The former is about equipment “readiness”. The latter is about the actual traffic “amount”. High value of the former does not necessarily imply the same to the latter. Without explicitly stating which one is being presented, wasteful debates based on these numbers persist. In fact, this is where the big smoke screen that our team had to go through to finally see more clearly about the true reference that we have to base upon.
B. The scope of the candidates for the source data set: Comparisons of the incident type needs to find the largest domain, not several sub-domains, to extract data from. This is important because an author can pick up a few datasets that support the “theory”, while overlooking others that may be more significant and introduce counter views. This is also tricky, because how can one tell which type of domain is bigger than the others? Since we are discussing a global event, any domain that implies worldwide coverage is much more trustworthy than multiple full datasets, each is country-based .
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Although all of your citations contain “IPv6”, some even include “status”, none of them clearly defines which one of the two choices in Pt. 1) A. it is referring to. Except, the browser tab of the following reads “IPv6 Capability Metrics”. This confirms, at least to me, that you have been looking at Capabilities instead of Volume. The former tends to show much higher numbers because it is just a report of how many devices online are ready to use IPv6 (I heard that such indication is carried in the IP packet somewhere?). This is because when users actually use IPv6, it then contributes to the Volume statistics.
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Allow me to share with you the IPv6 statistics that we have been following. On top of the two criteria in Pt. 1) above, we also look for consistency through time, i.e., track records such as how long and how frequently the data is updated.
A. IPv6 Deployment / Readiness: The following has been updated every few days for quite sometime. Whatever metrics that it is based upon, we can assume that it is applied worldwide. This appears to be a superset of what you cited.
B. IPv6 Traffic Volume: There was an annual report series by Cisco. But, the last one was in 2017. We could not find any later versions. Interestingly, Cisco TechSupport confirmed so.
- These days, we primarily monitor the following two statistics to keep up with the IPv6 performance status:
A. Google IPv6 Adoption: This is a daily report that goes back to 2008 Oct. The current peak is around 38%, while the average is around 36%. Also, a very interesting phenomenon can be observed if you zoom into a small segment of the graph. It shows the weekly fluctuations that peak during weekends or holidays when users are mostly accessing Google services from homes. In fact, the lock-down during the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the average up notably. Although this is only within Google, it is a worldwide statistics. More importantly, Google is one of the stronger IPv6 promoters. Similar statistics from other business should logically be capped by this graph.
B. AMS-IX Traffic Statistics: There are various measurements that are constantly (between every 7 to 15 minutes) updated. The URL below leads you to a set of composite graphs showing the percentages of various type of protocols being transported through AMS-IX. What you will find in the below graph is that IPv6 Traffic is only around 4.5% which is in the 10% range of that in the Google graph above.
- Pt. 4) B. is a surprise statistics. We have not been able to pin-point exactly how could this happen. Two factors should be kept in mind:
A. AMS-IX may not be the largest IX (Internet eXchange), but their operation is worldwide. They are the only business of this kind that has been providing the continuous reports (This kind of reports have been going on for ages. AMS-IX does not provide archived data. But, you can search Archive.org for historical data as far back as 2010-06.). So, we believe that this is more reliable than others.
B. IX businesses take the overflow traffic from Internet backbone carriers’ peering arrangements. So, the ratio between IPv4 and IPv6 could be different from the bulk in the core. However, one historical event (see URL below) hints that the IPv6 traffic on AMS-IX should have been even lower than what is reported if its peering agreements had been settled in a similar manner as those for IPv4.
Hope this run-down of background and history enable us to synchronize our perspective of the IPv6 status.
Regards,
Abe (2022-03-14 14:04)