The Akamai State of the Internet Q1 2017 Report is now out. As a major content delivery network, Akamai is able to collate substantial amounts of data on many metrics including connection speeds, broadband adoption, IPv4 exhaustion, and IPv6 deployment. While there are many interesting statistics and trends throughout the report, we will of course focus on the IPv4 depletion and IPv6 deployment efforts.

Some key highlights:

Belgium remained the global leader in IPv6 adoption, with 38% of its connections to Akamai for dual-stacked content happening over IPv6.

Akamai is finding that lack of IPv6 support in some consumer electronics (such as smart TVs and stand-alone digital media player devices) is presenting a barrier to growth in adoption, especially as the amount of content consumed on these devices grows over time.

There was an overall 19% quarterly drop in IPv6 adoption; however, Akamai indicates this may be due in part to a seasonal effect, as fourth-quarter IPv6 numbers generally appear to spike somewhat in comparison to other quarters. The end-of-year holiday period may be a factor in this, as more people are accessing the Internet more frequently from residential (versus business) connections, and residential connections tend to have higher levels of IPv6 penetration, sometimes substantially so.

Cable and wireless/mobile providers drove the largest volumes of IPv6 requests, as many are leading the way for IPv6 adoption in their respective countries.

Overall, it’s continued good news for the upward projection of IPv6 deployment across the globe, but it’s clear there’s still much work to be done. Organizations of all sizes and types really do now need to be actively deploying IPv6, so please take a look at our Start Here page to understand how you can begin, or finish, transitioning your networks, devices, and applications!