Growth of IPv6 and an Outlook for 2020
30/01/2020
By Alejandro Acosta, R+D Coordinator at LACNIC
A well-known saying states that man is a creature of habit so, for the sixth consecutive year, we are presenting a retrospective on IPv6 in the region.
Precisely because this is our sixth year, we will be reporting on the TOP six countries of our region and their IPv6 penetration rates among end users.
- Uruguay 38.27%
- French Guiana 35.61%
- Mexico 31.96%
- Brazil 28.69%
- Trinidad and Tobago 20.26%
- Peru 18.53%
Case by case. Uruguay, the second smallest country in South America (after Suriname), stands out when it comes to IPv6 penetration and Internet speed. It is the regional leader in both of these areas: almost 40 out of every 100 Uruguayans already have IPv6, and the average mobile download speed is above 20 Mbps.
French Guiana is home to “Le Center Spatial Guyanais” (known as the Guiana Space Center), a center used by many European nations for their launches. And they have also done a great job of launching IPv6! The graphs show that they began their deployment at the beginning of April 2019, at week two they already had a 20% IPv6 penetration rate, which at five weeks had grown to about 35.61%. As we write these, figures continue to grow.
Mexico is known for many things, among them their Day of the Dead celebrations. However, they are telling the world that IPv6 is alive and well. They began 2019 with a 24% penetration rate and over the course of the year they experienced a growth of over 30%.
Honoring its motto “Ordem e Progresso” (Order and Progress), this is precisely what Brazil has done with IPv6. Over the past year, Brazil increased its IPv6 penetration rate by 10%, reaching 30.22%. Not bad for the largest country in the region and fifth largest worldwide.
Trinidad and Tobago, birthplace of the musical instrument known as steel pan and worthy Caribbean representative of IPv6 deployment, is implementing the IPv6 protocol at a good rhythm so as to not lag behind. TT is ranked fifth in the region and is now offering IPv6 to one in five inhabitants. They must be trying to match the speed of Hasely Crawford (Trinidad and Tobago’s Usain Bolt in 1976)!
In Peru, IPv6 deployment is almost as high as its famous Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. For many years the country has been an icon for IPv6 deployment in the region, and it makes us very happy to see that they continue to be one of the leaders in this field. Its IPv6 penetration rate is currently a little over 18%.
A good average. Today, we are publishing weighted arithmetic averages based on the population and the degree of IPv6 penetration of each country, as well as on the total population of Latin America and the Caribbean, which provide more representative values of Internet users with IPv6 in our region.
IPv6 penetration among end users in Latin America is now 19.50%, a figure that is not bad but is still below the global average (29%).
Any bad news? In 2017, almost 34% of IPv6 websites were pointing to addresses assigned by LACNIC. By December 2018, this figure had decreased to 19%. Interestingly, in 2019, 33.2% of the websites in the LAC region once again pointed to IP addresses assigned by LACNIC.
A positive forecast. Forecasting has always been a very complicated task. As people of science, we put our faith in facts and numbers. However, when it comes to IPv6, getting it right is not difficult at all: IPv6 will continue to grow and its deployment will increase in our region. I believe that what’s happening is that clients are already inquiring whether their ISPs support IPv6 and, if not, they are looking for another ISP and that’s the end of the story.