IPv6 addresses – What is IPv6?

What is IPv6 – IPv6 addresses – what is this all about? Why we need IPv6 addresses? What is this buzz all about? When the IP protocol and addressing technology first came out, there was not even close so many devices in the world that could connect to the Internet. It was hard to imagine that we will have the need to make IP addresses longer that 32-bit. So we make them 32-bit addresses and call them IPv4 address. We were not able to imagine that we will have close to 4,294,967,296 devices online? This number is simple 2³² = 4,294,967,296 that means the number of different IP addresses that we can generate with 32 digits (bit) number.

Today, with all computer market expansion, cheaper prices of computers and all the new and different shapes of mobile internet devices, we have the situation in which number of IP addresses is too small to cover every device. Today internet technology enables that every cell phone, every computer and even other devices like coffee machines or air conditioning systems can be connected to the internet to embed the internet remote controlling possibilities or some other function. Not to mention millions of iPad, iPhone and Android Smartphone. The problem that came out with IPv4 addresses that we are mostly using today is that there are running out very fast so we decided to make another version of addressing which will be able to support all numerous devices today and in the future. The IPv6 was born, 128-bit addressing type that will be able to address more different devices that we can even imagine.

But, what that means exactly, how much more devices. Let’s take a look at the numbers. We said before that IPv6 is 128 bit address. That means that the IPv6 addresses number that can be generated is 2 to the power of 128 and that ends up being   340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 unique IP addresses. Vaaau, what a number? Yes is 340 trillion, 282 billion, 366 million, 920 thousand, 938 and then another 24 zeroes. We could assign an IPV6 address to every atom on the surface of the earth, and still have enough addresses left to do another, at least 100 earths. So that will be enough for all our devices (for now).