Google Will Permanently Switch on IPv6 Connectivity on June 6, 2012

IPv6 is finally here to stay. Well, it's almost finally here to stay, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to permanently switch on IPv6 connections for their sites on June 6th. At that point, users will be able to connect either via IPv4 or via IPv6, depending on the type of connection their ISPs provide and how their devices are configured.

It's a major milestone for IPv6 adoption, which has been lingering for years even as IPv4 addresses have run out. Current solutions to deal with the shortage are inelegant, somewhat complex and generally do more harm than good.

But they are preferred since they require less effort on the behalf of ISPs, hosting companies and so on than actually deploying and testing IPv6 connectivity.

The Internet Society, an organization which aims to push the adoption of the new protocol, hopes that a move like this involving the world's largest websites will spur everyone else to follow along. That said, it is still going to take years before IPv6 becomes the norm.

"We’re joining the Internet Society and several major Internet companies to announce World IPv6 Launch, a coordinated launch of the next-generation Internet protocol on June 6, 2012," Erik Kline, a Google IPv6 software engineer in Tokyo, announced.

"This builds on the success and momentum of last year’s World IPv6 Day by adding major contributions from ISPs and home networking vendors. With World IPv6 Launch, we’ll collectively close the gaps and begin to deliver the end-to-end, next-generation Internet," he added.

Last year, on June 6, many major websites turned on IPv6 connectivity, alongside the existing IPv4 one, for a full day. The idea was to test for any large scale problems. It went smooth enough and now they're ready to turn the switch on permanently.

The only thing preventing them in doing so is that some people may experience problems, due to poorly configured networking hardware, if both an IPv4 and an IPv6 connection is offered at the same time by a web server.