World IPv6 Day Offers "Test Flight" from Major Content Providers

June 8th is World IPv6 Day.


Major content providers, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Comcast, Microsoft Bing, Akamai, Limelight Networks and dozens of others, are marking the day by making a wide range of their content and services available directly over IPv6. The 24-hour demonstration is intended to be a test flight of IPv6 on a world wide scale.


The participating websites are activating IPv6 on their main site while continuing to support IPv4 as normal, so average users should not see any difference. However, the testing potentially could turn up some problems on home networks. Current estimates are that 0.05% of users may experience connectivity issues, and participating organizations will be working together with operating system manufacturers, home router vendors and ISPs to minimize the number of users affected.


The Internet Society, which organized the event, said it is seeking to motivate industry players work together to support the new protocol on an accelerated timeline. By acting together, ISPs, web site operators, OS manufacturers, and equipment vendors will be able to address problems, such as IPv6 brokenness in home networks and incomplete IPv6 interconnection. Also, on the day itself, any global scalability problems can be found in a controlled fashion and resolved cooperatively.
http://www.worldipv6day.org