IPv6
The latest variant of IP addresses is the Internet Protocol Version 6: IPv6. The purpose of IPv6 is to enable data transmission and communication. The most widely used type of IP address at the moment is IPv4. In 1998, IPv6 was created to one day replace IPv4. As there are more and more Web sites and devices, the Internet will one day run out of all unique IPv4 addresses. This was expected to happen in the year 2010, but this has not yet happened. This is mainly because IPv4 addresses are being reused and sold.
The difference between IPv4 and IPv6 protocols is the number of number ranges. An IPv4 address consists of four number ranges from 0 to 255. That means a 32-bit IPv4 address can look like this: 225.215.255.205. A total of 4.2 billion unique IP addresses are possible with the IPv4 protocol.
An IPv6 address consists of eight number strings and is 128-bit. Each number string consists of four alphanumeric characters. Thus, an example of an IPv6 address is: 255.215.205.225.215.205.225.255. In total, the IPv6 protocol gives a precise amount of 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 unique IP addresses. This gives enough assurance that one will not run out of a possible IPv6 address anytime soon.
Other differences IPv4 and IPv6
But beyond the difference in IP address lengths and options, there are some differences between IPv4 and IPv6. These differences are in the following five areas: security, support for mobile devices, addressing and routing, administrative workload, network address translation.
Enabling IPv6 will not speed up the Internet. However, the benefits for mobile devices are noteworthy. A mobile device can keep the same IPv6 address when moving from one connection to another. Here you can think of switching from a WiFi network in a café to a 4G network. This reduces the need for additional routing (where data must first be sent through the provider 's network). This creates higher speed, simplicity and usability with IPv6.
