The Internet switches to IPv6 on Wednesday

The Internet will pass through a major upgrade in this week. ISPs, home router manufacturers and web companies around the world will permanently enable version six of the IP addressing scheme (IPv6) for their products and services. The switch will occur at 00:01 GMT Wednesday.

The new standard is needed today because the number of IP addresses under the old IPv4 system has been exhausted. In February 2011, the internet authority IANA allocated its last batch of IPv4 addresses to the regional internet registries (RIRs), which are responsible for local distribution of IP addresses to enterprises and ISPs. When those stocks of IPv4 addresses run out, as has already happened in Asia, the RIRs will have no choice but to start distributing IPv6 addresses.

Most probably users won't notice the change:

"Most users shouldn't notice anything," said Leo Vegoda, a "numbers resources" manager for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the Internet address system. "If ordinary Internet users need to know stuff, then the technology isn't right."

Read more -here-

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