(Almost) All You Need To Know About IPv6

Posted by kdawson on Thursday March 8, 2007 @04:50AM from the billions-and-billions dept.

Butterspoon tips us to an article in Ars Technica titled "Everything you need to know about IPv6." Perhaps not quite "everything"; the article doesn't try to explain the reasons behind IPv6's meager adoption since its introduction 12 years ago. But it should be regarded as essential reading for anyone overly comfortable with their IPv4 addresses. Quoting: "As of January 1, 2007, 2.4 billion of those [IPv4 addresses] were in (some kind of) use. 1.3 billion were still available and about 170 million new addresses are given out each year. So at this rate, 7.5 years from now, we'll be clean out of IP addresses; faster if the number of addresses used per year goes up. Are you ready for IPv6?"

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Re:Address scarcity will not drive adoption of IPv by amper · 2007-03-08 08:03 · Score: 0, Redundant

I recognize that this is a problem. In fact, I think it's really the only significant problem in remaining with private IP addressing.

I don't buy the VoIP argument, though, as mentioned by other posters. I don't believe that any protocol should embed an address in it's data stream, and I think there are much more useful ways of connecting two calling devices than assigning every single handset on the face of the planet a publicly-routable number.