Networking

IPv6

128-bit IP addresses; 2^96× more space than IPv4.

In plain terms

No more NAT (mostly). 30+ years of slow rollout; finally hit ~50% of US traffic in 2023.

Origin

RFC 8200 is the current spec (2017), replacing RFC 2460 (1998). The 30-year-long rollout is mostly because IPv4 + NAT kept working "well enough."

Where it shows up in production

T-Mobile US, Reliance Jio Both run IPv6-only mobile networks; IPv4 lives only at the gateways.
Google IPv6 adoption stats ~45% of users hit Google over IPv6 in 2024.
AWS VPC IPv6 Supported since 2016 but most production workloads still default to IPv4.

Sources & further reading

Found this useful?