Considering a move to IPv6 for its Internet connection? Industry observer Steven J. Vaughan-Nicols says you’ll probably be doing it out of necessity before long, but that besides historical inevitability, there are good reasons for the switch.
As Vaughan-Nicols says, “What are the differences between IPv6 and IPv4? IPv4, with its 32-bit addressing, has all of the 4.3 billion unique addresses. That sounds like a lot until you start considering that you might have an iPad in your brief-case, a computer in front of you, and a PC in front of you, all of which may have a unique Internet Protocol address.”
The upshot is that with IPv6’s 128 bits worth of possible addresses -- 2 to the 128th power, for you non-idiot savants. L-o-t-s of addresses. Addresses that look like 2010:1003:0000:0000:0000:0000:0433:56cf.
Addresses we won’t run out of.
Besides blowing people away with the sheer possibilities, one of IPv6’s design goals, Vaughan-Nicols says, “was to cut down on the time technicians had to spend configuring and managing network devices.”
Oh sure, you can use Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol to assign addresses on IPv4-based business LANs today, Vaughan-Nicols says, noting that with DHCP, “you can only assign unique addresses within your own network. DHCP and NAT (Network Address Translation) gets in the way when you try to use Internet applications like videoconferencing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications, and the like.”
We’re trying to cut out as much of the geek talk as we can here, if you want to read sentences like “IPv6 networks can use stateless auto-configuration to assign addresses without manual intervention” please refer to the original article, but basically, as Vaughan-Nicols says, “another advantage of IPv6 addressing is that when you’re moving from place to place with your mobile device, you’ll no longer need to worry with getting a new Internet address at every stop.”
That’s the upshot: “If the wireless infrastructure around you is up to snuff, mobile IPv6 will let you move from one form of wireless connectivity to another without losing your connection or needing to pick up a new IP address.” Anybody can see the advantages there.
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.Edited by Erin Monda