"The Internet is changing: IPv6 set to come in on 6 June"

The Internet is about to change.

IPv4 is all set to be replaced by IPv6 on 6 June reports Tech2.in.  And yes we know your next question. What is IPv4, how is it different to IPv6, and is this change going to affect you?

IPv4 is the Internet Protocol Version 4 aka your IP address, which is made up of a sequence of four sets of numbers. The IP address is what allows communication between different devices. However due to the ever-growing usage of the Internet, the number of sequences in IPv4 has been exhausted. The solution was seen as IPv6 which would use a set of six numbers to allocate new addresses to users.

Most computers with Windows 7 and higher do have an option for IPv6 but because most service providers still use IPv4. SO IPv6 is just an option for now.

On 6 June however, most major tech companies will begin a transition to IPv6.Tech2.in.com reports that an official launch site with a countdown to the deadline has been created which announces the transition. Major companies such as Time Warner, AT&T, D-Link, Google, Cisco, Facebook, Bing and Yahoo! will all be a part of this move.

The IPv6 website announces that “This time it is for real”. It goes on to say:

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Major Internet service providers (ISPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world are coming together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services by 6 June 2012.

Organized by the Internet Society, and building on the successful one-day World IPv6 Day event held on 8 June 2011, World IPv6 Launch represents a major milestone in the global deployment of IPv6. As the successor to the current Internet Protocol, IPv4, IPv6 is critical to the Internet’s continued growth as a platform for innovation and economic development.

Last year 8 June, was marked as World IPv6 day and some Internet companies did test out their new IP addresses. Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and Akamai had done the IPv6 test along with the Internet Society, the organisation that handles Internet standards.

The exercise was done to eliminate any issues that might crop up during the worldwide transition to IPv6. According to Tech2, IPv6 currently has provisions for about four billion IPs. IPv4 addresses were exhausted in 2011.

So will the IPv6 affect everyone, especially India users? Well as far as accessing URLs go, not really. But once service providers do switch to IPv6, your existing IP address will change to six sets of numbers to different PCs. So if you want to track IP addresses, or use your IP for anything, you’ll just have a different and longer set of numbers!