Not sure if you’ve heard, but, the internet is out of IP addresses. Yep, thanks to the increasing number of connected devices (laptops, tablets and smartphones) and new technologies like wearables and the internet of things, we’ve used up all 4.3 billion addresses available in the current IPv4 protocol. Fortunately, the answer to this problem was released two years ago, and it’s called IPv6.
IPv6 is quickly on its way to becoming the new backbone of the internet, and according to some will be the dominant version by 2018.
And it’s probably not a bad thing, as IPv6 has some amazing improvements. For starters, the amount of available addresses shouldn’t be a problem for a very long time as IPv6 has 340 undecillion addresses.
Yes, that’s a number. It’s actually 340 trillion trillion trillion, can’t help but laugh when reading that.
IPv6 will help to manage the increasing number of connected devices and things in four main ways:
- Improve performance and efficiency of communications
- Improve security
- Simplify routing
- Simplify addressing
That’s a bit general, so what else is different about IPv6 when compared to IPv4? What other benefits will it offer, and what kind of impact will it make?
To help you better understand IPv6 here is a great infographic from Irish Telecom, that explains everything you need to know.
