IPv6 Test

Not sure whether your broadband already speaks the modern language of the internet? Run the IPv6 test above and you will know in seconds. It checks whether your connection can reach the internet over IPv6, shows you the IPv6 and IPv4 addresses the outside world sees for your connection, and gives you a plain-English readiness score out of ten. If you would rather start with the basics, the Speed Test UK homepage is a good place to check your speeds first, then come back here for the connectivity detail.

What Is IPv6, in Plain English?

Every device that connects to the internet needs an IP address — a number that identifies it so data knows where to go. The original system, IPv4, uses addresses like 86.142.10.25 and offers around 4.3 billion of them. That sounded endless in the 1980s. It is not endless now, and the pool of unused IPv4 addresses effectively ran out years ago.

IPv6 is the replacement. Its addresses look different — long strings such as 2a00:23c8:4a01:9e00:1a2b:3c4d:5e6f:7a8b — and the address pool is so large it is effectively inexhaustible. IPv6 also tidies up some of the workarounds the internet has been forced to adopt, in particular the heavy use of NAT (network address translation), where a whole household hides behind one shared public IPv4 address.

The changeover is gradual. For years, most connections will run both systems side by side, a setup called dual-stack. Your browser then quietly picks whichever protocol a website supports, preferring IPv6 when both are available. That is why a simple ipv6 test matters: everything can appear to work perfectly while IPv6 itself is completely absent — or quietly broken.

How to Run This IPv6 Test

The test takes under ten seconds and needs nothing but the device you are reading this on:

• Step 1: Connect to the network you want to check — your home Wi-Fi for a broadband check, or mobile data with Wi-Fi switched off for a phone-network check.
• Step 2: If you use a VPN, pause it first. A VPN changes the addresses the internet sees and can hide your real IPv6 setup entirely.
• Step 3: Press Run IPv6 Test at the top of this page and wait a few seconds while both checks complete.
• Step 4: Read the readiness score and the results table. Green “Pass” rows mean that part of your connection is working; anything else has an explanation next to it.
• Step 5: If you change a router setting afterwards — enabling IPv6, for example — run the test again to confirm the change actually took effect.

One useful trick: run the test twice, once over Wi-Fi and once with a laptop plugged into the router with an Ethernet cable. If IPv6 works wired but not wirelessly, the problem sits in your home setup rather than with your provider.

What Your IPv6 Test Results Mean

IPv6 connectivity — Pass. Your connection reached a server that only exists on IPv6. This is the headline result: it cannot be faked by an IPv4 connection, so a pass means your provider routes IPv6 to you, your router hands it to your devices, and this device is using it.

Your IPv6 address. This is the long address websites see when they connect to you over IPv6. Most UK home connections receive a whole block of IPv6 addresses (a prefix), and individual devices pick addresses from within it, often rotating temporary ones for privacy. If this row shows “None”, the connectivity check will have failed too.

IPv4 connectivity and address. Almost every connection should pass this. Your IPv4 address is usually shared by every device in your home behind your router — and sometimes, on providers using CGNAT, shared with other households too.

Dual-stack status. “Dual-stack” is the healthy, normal result: both protocols work and your devices choose per website. “IPv4 only” means your connection belongs to the shrinking group that has not made the jump yet. “IPv6 only” is rare at home and usually means a VPN or a translation service is in play.

DNS note. A fair warning about what no browser test can do: your browser cannot see which DNS resolver your router uses, or whether DNS queries travel over IPv6, because the browser itself does not handle that step. If DNS problems are what you actually suspect, run our separate DNS speed test as well.

The readiness score. The score out of ten is a summary, weighted towards IPv6 because that is what you came to check: working IPv6 earns six points, working IPv4 earns two, and having both together — true dual-stack — earns the final two. A 10/10 connection needs nothing further. A 4/10 connection works fine today but is IPv4 only.

IPv6 in the UK: Which Providers Actually Offer It?

The UK picture is a genuine patchwork, and it explains most “why does my neighbour have IPv6 and I don’t?” questions. Among the largest providers, BT and Sky have offered IPv6 by default on their consumer broadband for years, and most of their customers are dual-stack whether they know it or not — if you are with either, this test will very likely pass straight away. EE’s mobile network leans heavily on IPv6 for its 4G and 5G services, so phones on EE frequently test as IPv6-connected even when the same home’s fixed broadband does not.

Virgin Media has historically been the big exception: the vast majority of its cable customers have remained IPv4 only for years while a full IPv6 rollout has been repeatedly discussed and trialled. TalkTalk and several smaller providers have likewise been slow, with IPv6 available to some business or full-fibre customers but far from universal. Newer full-fibre networks vary again — some alternative networks were built IPv6-first.

Two practical consequences follow. First, your result says as much about your provider as about your equipment, so do not blame your router until you have checked what your provider actually supplies. Second, availability changes street by street and package by package, so the ten seconds this test takes beats any general claim — including ours. If you are comparing providers, our broadband speed test and provider guides will help you judge the whole package, not just the protocol.

Globally, IPv6 adoption keeps climbing: Google’s long-running statistics show a substantial and growing share of its users connecting over IPv6 worldwide, and the UK tracks in a similar range. You can watch the trend yourself on Google’s IPv6 adoption statistics page.

The Test Says I Have No IPv6. Should I Care?

Honestly, not urgently. An IPv4-only connection still reaches effectively the whole of today’s internet, because every major website and service keeps IPv4 support for exactly this reason. Nothing you use daily is about to stop working.

There are, though, a few situations where IPv6 genuinely helps:

• Gaming. Xbox and PlayStation services are built with IPv6 in mind, and a native IPv6 connection can avoid some of the NAT complications that cause strict-NAT warnings and party-chat problems.
• Mobile services. Mobile networks increasingly run IPv6 at their core; some apps and tethering setups behave measurably better with it.
• Future-proofing. A small but growing number of services — some hosting, cloud and developer platforms — are cheaper or only available over IPv6. Dual-stack costs you nothing and keeps every door open.
• Simpler networking. Without layers of NAT, some things — running a home server, remote access, certain smart-home setups — become noticeably less fiddly.

What IPv6 will not do is make your broadband faster in any way you can measure on a normal connection. If speed itself is your concern, test it properly with the free UK speed test and read the result against your package.

No IPv6? A Troubleshooting Checklist

If you expected a pass and got a fail, work through these in order:

• Check whether your provider supplies IPv6 at all. Search their support pages for “IPv6” plus your package name. If they do not offer it on your product, nothing at home will conjure it up.
• Look in your router’s settings. Most modern routers have an IPv6 page with an on/off switch and a mode — usually labelled DHCPv6, SLAAC or “automatic”. If it is off, turn it on, save, restart the router and re-test.
• Restart things in the right order. Switch the router off for 30 seconds, let it fully reconnect, then restart the device you are testing from. IPv6 settings are often picked up only at connection time.
• Test on a second device. If your phone passes and your PC fails, the PC is the problem — check that IPv6 is enabled in its network adapter settings (it occasionally gets unticked during “tweaking”).
• Turn off VPNs and “IPv6 protection” features. Some VPN apps deliberately block or tunnel IPv6, which makes this test describe the VPN, not your broadband.
• Ask your provider, with evidence. Tell them the date, the device and that an IPv6-only address could not be reached. A test result is a far better support conversation opener than “my internet feels old-fashioned”.

If IPv6 passes but websites still misbehave, the fault probably lies elsewhere — run through the guides on testing your broadband speed properly before changing more settings.

Who Looks After IPv6 in the UK?

IPv6 is coordinated internationally rather than by any single UK body. Address policy in Europe is overseen by the RIPE Network Coordination Centre, which allocates the large address blocks that UK providers then assign to customers. Within the UK, the volunteer-run UK IPv6 Council tracks deployment and brings providers together — its published material is a fair, hype-free way to see which networks are actually moving. Between them, they explain why rollout happens in waves: a provider typically enables IPv6 region by region and router model by router model, not in one big national switch-on.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if my connection supports IPv6?

Run the test at the top of this page. If the IPv6 connectivity row shows “Pass” and an IPv6 address is displayed, your connection supports IPv6 and this device is using it. If the IPv6-only check fails while IPv4 passes, your connection is IPv4 only at the moment.

Is IPv6 faster than IPv4?

Not in any way most households would notice. IPv6 can occasionally take a slightly more direct route, and it avoids some NAT overhead, but your download and upload speeds are set by your broadband package and line, not by the protocol. Test your speed separately if pace is your concern.

Why does my IPv6 address keep changing?

That is normal and often deliberate. Devices generate temporary IPv6 addresses for outgoing connections and rotate them for privacy, while the underlying block your provider assigned to your router usually stays the same for long periods. Your IPv4 address may change too — most UK home connections use dynamic addressing on both protocols.

My provider says IPv6 is enabled, but the test fails. Why?

The three usual culprits are a router with IPv6 still switched off in its own settings, an older router model that has not received the provider’s IPv6 configuration, or a VPN/firewall on the device quietly intercepting the test. Work through the checklist above, then ask the provider to confirm IPv6 is active on your specific line.

Can I turn IPv6 off if it causes problems?

You can, in your router settings or on the device itself, and very occasionally an old device or a badly behaved router firmware makes that a sensible temporary step. Treat it as a diagnostic, though, not a lifestyle: disabling IPv6 entirely can break things that quietly rely on it, and the number of such things grows each year. Fix the faulty part where you can.

Does IPv6 make me less private or less safe?

No — if anything, modern IPv6 behaviour is designed with privacy in mind, using temporary addresses that rotate so a single address does not follow you around the web. Your router’s firewall matters just as much on IPv6 as on IPv4, and every mainstream router applies one by default. An IPv6 address on its own is not a security risk.

Run the Test, Note the Score

That is all there is to it: scroll up, press the button, and see whether your connection is dual-stack, IPv4 only, or somewhere in between. Whatever the result, you will at least know — and if a setting change is needed, you now know exactly where to look and how to prove the fix worked. For the rest of your connection’s health, head back to Speed Test UK and put your speeds to the test as well.