Internet service provider Internode today announced that it had rolled out optional IPv6 networking for its customers. The announcement came after a 20-month trial.
Customers can now opt-in to the service. The service is available both for standard ADSL connections and to the ISPs' customers connected to an internet service through the National Broadband Network.
The ISP's managing director, Simon Hackett, said in a statement that the company was exploring the deployment of additional IPv6 facilities for customers, including DNS management and DNS record assignment.
"Meantime, the fundamentals of our IPv6 service — the native, dual stack IPv6 service itself — is a tested, stable and supported part of the national Internode service as of today," Hackett said.
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Hackett said that the ISP will move to an opt-out basis for the service in the future. IPv6 is the 128-bit successor to the IPv4 addressing system and is designed to deal with the limited number of addresses offered by the older, 32-bit-based protocol.
Australian interest in IPv6 soared in February, when the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) was allocated two large blocks of IPv4 addresses. APNIC then announced the full allocation of one of the stocks allocated to it.
However, during World IPv6 Day in June, Australian traffic using the protocol barely registered a blip according to Akamai Technologies' real-time monitor.
In the wake of the international event, Facebook, Google and Yahoo announced ongoing support for the protocol.