Would using exclusively IPv6 lower your ping?

I know the question might sound silly, but my thought process is this:

If your ISP supports IPv6, and you use it from your PC all the way to them (i.e. PC → Router → Modem (if not router/modem comb) → ISP), there is no need for NAT (Network Address Translation).

If your modem/router are particularly weak in terms of hardware, it processing the needed steps for NAT could add latency in waiting on it to do it’s job.

I don’t know how intensive that process can be, but I do know ISP routers/modems can be pretty terrible at times. So that brings me to the title’s question.

Obviously you can’t affect things outside your network (i.e. other people not using IPv6).

I also wonder if IPv6 has different protocols that would lower the overhead on data transfer to also help with this. I don’t know much about it beyond some basics at the moment and am learning about it, and the original question came to mind, so I thought I’d ask it here.

NAT shouldn't increase latency in a meaningful way unless you have too many packets per second for the firewall to handle. But even if you were using ipv6 you should still be using a firewall.

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Read this if you've got the time.

https://theses.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-10062003-170440/unrestricted/thesis.pdf

But yes, NAT adds latency to packets. However, to really be affected by this you would have to have many clients on your network. In the paper I linked, there results showed that when there were 2000 entries in the NAT table, it only slowed each packet down by 3 milliseconds.

Your home network of probably less than 30 devices, will not have a slowdown of measurable magnitude.

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