June 6 is World IPv6 Launch day. It comes roughly a year after World IPv6 Day, which ultimately helped raise awareness of IPv6 implementation. Launch day aims to push real IPv6 connectivity to the masses, with quite a few ISPs and online entities flipping the switch for customers.

To find out if your ISP or favorite online service is participating, head on over to the Participants page on the World IPv6 Launch website. For cable Internet subscribers, accessing the IPv6-enabled Internet will probably mean equipment upgrades — namely, a DOCSIS 3 gateway.

IPv6 is an updated form of the ubiquitous Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). One of the most notable improvements is an addressing scheme that allows for a much larger amount of total devices. This larger address space resolves the imminent issue of IPv4 address exhaustion. Other improvements make dynamic address assignment, multicasting, and router processing more straightforward.

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