Facebook, Google, and Yahoo are joining Akamai, and Limelight Networks, along with the Internet Society, for the first global-scale trial of the new Internet Protocol, IPv6. On June 8, 2011, dubbed “World IPv6 Day,” participants will enable IPv6 on their main services for 24 hours. With IPv4 addresses running out this year, the industry must act quickly to accelerate full IPv6 adoption or risk increased costs and limited functionality online for Internet users everywhere. The companies are coming together to help motivate organizations across the industry eg: Internet service providers, hardware manufacturers, operating system vendors and other web companies, to prepare their services for the transition.

IPv4 has a total of approximately four billion IP addresses (the sequence of numbers assigned to each Internet-connected device). The explosion in the number of people, devices and web services on the Internet means that IPv4 is running out of space. IPv6, the next-generation Internet protocol, which provides over four billion times more space, will connect the billions of people not connected today and will help ensure the Internet can continue its current growth rate. Once Ipv6 is deployed, connections with no IPv6 address will only be able to browse the IPv4 internet only. You will not be able to reach IPv6-only sites.

Website Owners

If you'd like to bring your company's website online using IPv6 during the World IPv6 Day you'll need to make it IPv6 accessible using dual stack technology and provide a AAAA record for the site. IPv4 websites will of course continue to be accessible over IPv4 during the event. Contact us and provide us some information about your plans to participate and we will add your site to the list of participating sites.

This is a 24 hour event June 8, 2011, from 0000 to 2359 UTC. Websites will be operating over IPv6 for 24 hours on this date. On the day of the event we will provide a status dashboard of websites that have said they will participate. You'llbe able to check a website's IPv6 accessibility on the status dashboard.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 are both IPv6 ready. Mac OS X 10.5 and higher is fine. FreeBSD and Linux, all recent versions, are also fine. When your internet service provider offers IPv6 to you, these OSs are good. You may still need to replace your router (wireless or wired), if it is not aware of IPv6. You'll have to consult with your internet service provider on when IPv6 will be offered.

Windows XP users: plan on upgrading before using IPv6. It is technically possible to use IPv6 with XP, but only to a minimal extent.

Want to find out your IPv6 readiness? Use this test.