According to Google data, in March 2022, the global IPv6 adoption rate was about 34%, but in the United States it was about 46%. Carrier networks and ISPs were the first to start implementing IPv6 on their networks, with mobile networks leading the way. For example, in March 2002, more than 90% of T-MobileUSA's traffic passed through IPv6, followed by Verizon Wireless at 82.63%.
According to data from industry group WorldIpv6Launch, Comcast and AT&T's network ratio is 70% and 73% respectively. IPv6 has seen wider adoption in Asia and South America over the past few years, with India currently accounting for about 62%, and Indian wireless operator Reliance Jio Infocomm topping the global IPv6 network adoption rankings with over 93% share.
WorldIPv6Launch stated that less than 30% of the Alexa top 1,000 websites are currently accessible via IPv6. In recent years, this number has been stagnant. The company lags behind in distribution. For example, a Mature Labs report on IPv6 adoption found that IPv6 usage actually declined in the United States from 2020 to 2021, and hypothesized that the reason may be that people working from home during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were returning to offices and IPv4-based corporate networks.
The complexity, cost, and time required to complete the migration are all reasons why enterprise IT has been slow to adopt migration projects. Additionally, many small and medium-sized enterprises outsource their network needs to service providers, who themselves have no strong incentive to migrate without a push from customers.
However, not all companies are resisting; for example, Amazon is migrating its AWS serverless and container workloads to IPv6. But inertia, besides the fact that widespread use of NAT avoids running out of IPv4 addresses, reduces the incentive to take risks and move to IPv6. Therefore, the transition may not be completed until 2030 or later. However, as the price of IPv4 addresses begins to drop, the Internet Society recommends that companies sell their existing IPv4 addresses to help fund IPv6 implementation. MIT does this, according to a note posted on GitHub. The university concluded that it had a "surplus" of 8 million IPv4 addresses and could therefore sell them without affecting current or future demand because it had an unspecified number of IPv6 addresses available.
Additionally, as more deployments occur, more companies will begin charging for the use of IPv4 addresses while offering IPv6 services for free. UK ISPMythicBeasts says "IPv6 connections are standard" while "IPv4 connections are optional". Pushing for a faster transition will also require political action, although this is not on the to-do lists of many Western governments. One country that is making a large-scale transition to IPv6 is China. In 2021, China's Cyberspace Administration of China proposed an ambitious roadmap, aiming to have 800 million active IPv6 users by the end of 2025.
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