Q: What's the lowdown on IPv6? I keep hearing these incredible rumors about the new addressing schemes, packet-level encryption, and so on. But I can't find any concise info on the specifics of it or when it's supposed to be deployed. Whatcha know?
- James
A: IP version 6 (IPv6) is an update to version 4 of the Internet Protocol, the platform on top of which all Internet data is exchanged. The driving force behind the development of IPv6 is the rapidly dwindling supply of network addresses under the current IPv4. Some predict the exhaustion of these addresses will occur within the next 3 to 15 years.
Every device attached to the Internet must have an IP address. Under IPv4 these addresses are 32 bits long (which looks something like this: 204.62.132.105). The new spec increases the address space to 128 bits, which theoretically means there could be a total of 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 devices connected to the Internet under IPv6. This works out to be 665,570,793,348,866,943,898,599 addresses per square meter of the earth's surface - hopefully that will be enough.
In addition to increasing the number of Internet addresses, IPv6 adds a number of other refinements to the Internet Protocol, including encryption, authentication, quality of service, and other ways to aid in the routing of packets. Most of these features are still in the development stages, and their actual usefulness will depend heavily on their final specification and implementation.
There is an IPv6 backbone - known as 6bone - already in place in IPv6 experimentation, but it's not practical to connect an IPv6 network to the Internet yet. Since standards are still being ratified, and the IPv6 encryption technology isn't even close to being universal, it's really hard to predict when the whole package will be ready. When the change does come, though, it will most likely start at the top with major backbone providers and work its way down.
For more information, check out the IPng page.
