Welp, I guess it’s time to head out Californee way. I hear they got a whole mess of internets out there and we’re all dried up. You see, the world’s run out of IP addresses on the old standard, IPv4. Luckily, said world has also been working on transitioning to the new standard: The bright and shiny IPv6. The launch of IPv6 compatibility across major internet service providers and home networking manufacturers is set to go down this coming Wednesday, June 6, 2012.
Assuming all goes to plan, there shouldn’t be any hiccups in the system beyond some minor speed irregularities as old IPv4 interacts with brand spankin’ new IPv6 out in the wild. Of course, this is all assuming everything goes to plan like it should. Regardless, as all of the IPv4 addresses have been all claimed by those who assign such things, the move to a new standard is a necessity.
And it’s a pretty decent solution as well. While maintaining compatibility, IPv6 allows for trillions of IP addresses compared to the seemingly meager four billion allotted to IPv4. A full transition is likely to take several years so there’s no real worry if you’re currently utilizing IPv4. Cisco’s Sampa Choudhuri does suggest, however, that if your business finds itself shaking hands with IPv6 the majority of the time then it’d be in your best interest to go ahead and upgrade.
(World IPv6 Launch via Phys.Org, image credit via Mark Stosberg)
- The world IPv6 test was last year, seemed to go well
- One company wanted to give all lightbulbs an IPv6 address
- The day all IPv4 addresses were allocated
