IPv6 began to develop in 1998, but it was not until June 2012 when the global launch of IPv6 was celebrated, where large Internet companies such as Facebook, Google or Microsoft enabled the use of this network protocol in products and services. However, almost a decade has passed, and although its implementation has improved, it is still a long way from replacing IPv4 as planned.
And it seems that we will have to wait even longer, as the Gartner firm has advanced in an analysis it has done on when the next technologies are going to reach users in a massive way. Specifically, they claim that IPv6 is going to take at least 5 or 10 years to be used widely, so it seems that we still have IPv4 to r
ato.
In the graph, which may seem somewhat confusing at first, we can see the time periods and phases of expectations that Gartner sets for different technologies, such as 6G, IPv6 or WiFi 7 . There are also other disruptive technologies that will be arriving in the coming years that you probably have not heard of.
Other technologies are still very green
6G, for example, is still somewhat theoretical, and will not begin to be deployed until at least 2030. Gartner recommends keeping an eye on it, although for now with 5G we will have excellent performance and latency for a long time. For 5G there will also be a great improvement: Private 5G , which will allow, for example, to connect to private networks in a similar way to WiFi, but cheaper and with higher speed in some cases.
Another technology that will improve network management is AIOPS , which will allow AI to monitor and manage networks to fix faults even before humans detect them. We also find others such as eBPF , which will improve the security and reliability of apps in Linux, or NaaS (Network-as-a-service) to divide the networks and sell them as a service.
Another technology that they say will have a big influence is the single Internet access WAN , which will be used by 30% of users in 2023, twice as much as today. At the speed level, they also talk about the 400 Gbps Ethernet connectivity, which will replace the 100 Gbps one. The company says it will be the most widely used even though it is already working on an Ethernet standard of up to 800 Gbps . For the home, however, it will have no practical applications, since here we will gradually adopt 2.5G, and probably 10G in the next decade.
IPv4 is still a big problem today
In short, the Internet has needed IPv6 for years. The absence of IPv4 is causing that there are operators that cannot even start their activity because they do not have IPv4 addresses to work. Large operators treasure many of these addresses, and smaller ones have to resort to CG-NAT . Each IPv4 address sells for $ 40, and there are companies like Apple or Ford that have 16.7 million each.
Those companies themselves are not interested in going to IPv6 because they have a high control of the current Internet, selling those addresses and taking a profit from them for something that was free decades ago. One solution could be to force all addresses that are not in use to be handed over to the corresponding RIRs. At the same time, it is essential to use technologies that facilitate the transition, such as DS-Lite, which uses IPv4 addresses to access servers and websites that have not made the leap, and which allows the use of IPv6 in compatible services.
While some neighboring countries close to 50% adoption of IPv6 , in Spain we are barely around 2.5% .
