Posted by
Don Bowman in
Yesterday, major communications service providers (CSPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world came together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products as part of World IPv6 Day.
Looking at the preliminary data, this year’s World IPv6 Day was not simply turned on with one big flick of a switch, instead it looks as though yesterday’s date simply served as a deadline that many websites have been working towards over the past year to meet.
The chart below shows the share of native IPv6 traffic on a major fixed-access network in North America over the past month. In it you can see that Netflix and Facebook enabled some IPv6 functionality in late May, which has helped to more than double the share of IPv6 traffic in just the past two weeks. While there is still noticeable uptick in traffic on June 6 itself, the majority of traffic comes from just two sites, Netflix and YouTube.
(Click on image to enlarge.)
The table below (from Sandvine’s Network Demographics reporting product) takes a deeper dive in order to compare and contrast the top domains with native IPv4 and IPv6. The IPv4 table shows the largest sites and CDNs, by HTTP byte volume, in the United States. By comparing the largest IPv4 domains to the largest IPv6 domains, we can identify the movers and shakers.
YouTube accounted for more than half of all Native IPv6 traffic, while Facebook (fbcdn.net and facebook.com) leapt up the list. Some notable domains that tumbled down the rankings (or disappeared entirely) include: edgesuite.net, llnwd.net (Limelight), apple.com, playstation.net, hbogo.com, and pandora.com.
Netflix moved up to second in the IPv6 list – as noted above, Netflix has been rolling out IPv6 coverage over the last few weeks. Interestingly, it appears as if Netflix may have created its own IPv6-specific domain which is responsible for almost a third of all IPv6 traffic. If this is the case it might not be in full compliance with the spirit of World IPv6 Day, as the aim should have been for Netflix to operate one single domain with both AAAA records for IPv6 and A records for IPv4.
(Click on image to enlarge.)
Sandvine is going to spend the next few days digging a little deeper in to the numbers, and like last year we will be publishing a Global Internet Phenomena Spotlight on the event that will cover much more. Be sure to check back early next week for a wider range of insights revealed by World IPv6 Day.
Bookmark this article!
“Interestingly, it appears as if Netflix may have created its own IPv6-specific domain which is responsible for almost a third of all IPv6 traffic.”
What Netflix domain is that?
Hey frnkblk,
Dan Deeth from Sandvine here.
The domain we are making reference to (nflxvideo.net) is seen in the IPv6 chart.
That domain does not appear in the IPv4 list, and nflximg.com is used instead.
If you have any other questions, drop me a line at ddeeth@sandvine.com.
More service providers should be promoting the use of IPv6 and trying to convince customers to use it. After all, at a time when security is more important than ever, IPv6 does offer better security options.