World IPv6 Day: IPv6 Test Flight by Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Bing

Today World's largest Telecom Carriers, Web Content Providers, Hardware suppliers and Software vendors will be on the edge of their seats for the start of World IPv6 Day. The most anticipated 24 hours the tech industry has seen since the fears of the Y2K bug that dominated New Year Eve in 1999.

The Internet Protocol (IP), IPv4 and IPv6

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the language that computers use to communicate with each other on the Internet; it works much like phone numbers, which let us connect one telephone to another.

IPv6 is the new version of the Internet Protocol. The addresses used by the current version of the Internet Protocol, IPv4, are nearly all used. At Google, we believe that IPv6 is essential to the continued health and openness of the Internet – and that by allowing all devices on a network to talk to each other directly, IPv6 will enable innovation and allow the Internet to continue to grow.

World IPv6 Day: IPv6 Test Flight

Most websites today use only IPv4. But on June 8, 2011 - World IPv6 Day - More than 400 organizations, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Bing will enable IPv6 on their main websites for 24 hours. IPv6 will be enabled in addition to IPv4, so if you don’t have IPv6, don’t worry - you will simply use IPv4 as usual.

For example, if you go to Google and search with term Google IPv6 Day, it will show a yellow alert on the top of page saying:

The Internet needs more addresses! That's why Google and other websites are testing a new protocol, IPv6, on June 8.

Uh-oh. Your connection may not be ready. Try it now

IPv6 Test Flight is a large scale experiment aimed at identifying problems associated with IPv6 upgrade from IPv4. Here is how Google displays the Result of IPv6 Test on my network: