Hurricane Electric LLC

Hurricane Electric is a Fremont, California network operator that built the world's largest IPv6 backbone while other providers concentrated on maintaining IPv4 infrastructure. It connects to over 9,600 different networks across more than 320 major exchange points.

The company owns and operates its own global fiber-optic network rather than leasing capacity, with redundant 100G paths crossing continents: five separate connections between the United States and Europe, plus rings spanning Asia and Africa.

The IPv6 tunnel broker service carries over 52,760 provisioned tunnels across 174 countries, providing free 6in4 IPv6 transition mechanisms to networks and individuals that could not otherwise reach the IPv6 internet. It launched at a time when most providers were dragging their feet on IPv6 adoption.

The portfolio extends past IPv6 into internet transit, colocation in the Fremont data centers, dedicated servers, and web hosting. IP transit carries both IPv4 and IPv6 on the same connection, at speeds from gigabit ethernet up to 100GE.

An IPv6 certification program has taken over 21,500 individuals across 164 countries to the highest certification level, making Hurricane Electric an educator as well as an infrastructure provider.

The newest data center facility spans 200,000 square feet, continuing a pattern of investment in physical infrastructure: fiber, hardware, and the physical connections underneath digital communication.