The uptake of IPv6 in Europe is depending on a lot of factors. One of these factors are the support for IPv6 in consumer products such as the networking stack of operating systems. Since the slow start with plugins and code sniplets for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows the support have been put into native mode on all three of the major OS’es.

The next important factor is the support in available and sensible prised networking equipment. Most of the major brands such as Cisco, HP, Nokia et. al. now supports IPv6 within their entire product range.

The final factor that will limit usage of IPv6 is certainly the support from the Network/Internet Service Providers. In most of Europe the ISP’s are following the wishes written up by the RIPE member community. However, the implementation of the IPv6 into production and transparent use of dual-stacking have not been widespread.

Thus, it was a real joy to buy (€8/1hour) Internet access at Madrid airport today on my way home from the Honeymoon and discover the following: 


root@caramel:~# aptitude update
..
60% [Connecting to no.archive.ubuntu.com (2001:700:300:1800::b)

Woha there cowboy. Native IPv6 on wireless Internet from Spain to Norway. I had not even recognized this while reading email (some from IPv6 enabled servers) and surfing the web (among the sites visited a few are indeed dualstacks). Nice 🙂

I can only give my praise to AEANA and Kubi Networks of Aptilo (and it seems they had a say too; Vodafone Spain) to have put this into production.

Great stuff. Thanks for all the bits!