Over 1.2 billion Internet users are currently utilizing IPv6, with India, China, and the US leading in adoption numbers and penetration rates. The remaining 40% of the market resides in the enterprise sector, where transitioning to IPv6-Only networks is recommended to reduce capital and operational expenditures while enabling the eventual deprecation of IPv4. Key drivers for this shift include the growing demands of 5G, cloud services, and IoT, alongside the specific benefits IPv6 offers for autonomous vehicles, smart grids, and industrial automation. Successful deployments by major cloud providers and operators demonstrate practical guidelines for implementing IPv6 to support future innovations like SDN, NFV, and deterministic networking.
Keywords: IPv6-Only, deterministic networking, autonomous vehicles, smart grids, M2M communications