Updated August 22: Sky has successfully enabled dual-stack IPv6 connections for about 80 percent of its broadband customers. The company had originally aimed for 92 percent by the middle of 2016, but is still hoping to hit that mark by the end of the year. The remaining eight percent will be brought over to IPv6 eventually (it's mostly down to old equipment that needs replacing).

Meanwhile, BT has finally revealed when most of its customers can expect IPv6 connectivity: early 2017. The company told Ars that it's still on target to enable dual-stack IPv6 across its network by the end of 2016, but most customers won't actually be able to use it until early next year.

Some people with a new BT Smart Hub (Home Hub 6) have reported that they already have IPv6 connectivity (including myself). Everyone who has a Home Hub 5 will be able to use IPv6 when BT deigns to turn it on.

Original story (January 20)

Sky, the UK's second largest ISP with about 5.8 million subscribers, is aiming to be the first major UK ISP to transition its entire customer base from IPv4 (i.e. conventional IP addresses) to IPv6 (newer, giant, 128-bit IP addresses). The world has mostly run out of IPv4 addresses, so moving to IPv6 is quite important at this point if we want the Internet to keep growing.

Sky's plan, announced at yesterday's UK Network Operators' Forum (UKNOF), is to roll out updated router firmware over the next six months. This new firmware will switch customers from Sky's current IPv4 network over to IPv6. By the middle of the year, Sky says that 92 percent of its customers (more than 5 million subscribers) will be using IPv6.

The remaining 8 percent consists of: Sky customers who are using old routers that can't support IPv6 (3 percent); customers with non-Sky routers that may not be able to use the IPv6 network, but will probably be fine (2 percent); and the last 3 percent won't be able to use IPv6 due to nondescript "technology problems."

Sky has been building out a dual-stack network over the last few years, culminating in a giant IPv6 trial (about 1 million users) towards the end of 2015. Dual-stack in this sense means that customers on Sky's IPv6 network will be able to seamlessly interact with IPv4 networks—which is important as the majority of the Internet is still on IPv4. In addition to your usual IPv4 address, each upgraded Sky router will receive an IPv6 /56 block, which equates to 4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 individual addresses. Hopefully that's enough for all the various Internet-connected fridges, light bulbs, and other devices you might install over the next few millennia.

BT (the consumer ISP, not Openreach) is also working on deploying a dual-stack IPv6 network here in the UK. The current plan is to have 100 percent IPv6 coverage by the end of 2016. That isn't to say that 100 percent of BT's customers will actually be using the IPv6 network by the end of 2016, though: unlike Sky, BT hasn't yet announced its plans for pushing customers onto the shiny new network. Still, given the rather heated competition between BT and Sky, we'd expect BT to be hot on Sky's heels.

The other big player, Virgin Media, has indicated that most of its network is "IPv6 ready," but has kept shtum on actual IPv6 trials or deployment.

Other smaller ISPs, such as Andrews & Arnold, have offered dual-stack IPv6 connectivity in the UK for years. Throughout Europe, many major ISPs are trialling IPv6, or in some cases have already started transitioning customers to their dual-stack IPv6 network. In the US, Verizon Wireless operates a dual-stack IPv6 network with tens of millions of users, and big wireline IPv6 trials are picking up steam.

Big service providers, such as Google and Facebook, have supported IPv6 for years, as have many Internet backbone/backhaul connectivity providers.

After many years of lackadaisical apathy over the forthcoming IPocalypse, will 2016 finally be the year of widescale consumer adoption?