The Web’s Been Running Out of Space, But IPv6 Is Saving It

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The web has been running out of IP addresses, but some of the key players on the Internet have been testing a new protocol to ensure the future of connected devices.

Every device that connects to the web gets a unique IP address; the protocol for those addresses, IPv4, only supported around 4 billion addresses.

While some of those addresses are reusable, some are not. And the one-use addresses were leading up to the complete depletion of IP addresses.

IPv6 is the new protocol, and it’s replacing IPv4. IPv6 will make space for a huge number of IP addresses. Now, all we have to do is prepare for a worldwide transition from one overarching protocol to another.

June 8 was World IPv6 Day, and that’s exactly what participants were testing: whether or not websites, ISPs and consumers are IPv6-ready. Around 400 organizations teamed up and offered access to their sites via IPv6 for a 24-hour testing period. Here are some of the stats and findings that have emerged since these companies started working on the IPv6 problem.


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[data sources: The Internet Society, Arbor Networks, Neustar, Internap, Google IPv6 Statistics]

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