The 6 biggest misconceptions about IPv6

Personally, I think the biggest misconception is the IPv6 is only about a larger 128 bit address. This article is interesting and leaves some room for debate.

Rick

For 15 years, Internet engineers and policymakers have been publicizing the need to upgrade the 'Net's current addressing scheme -- known as IPv4 -- to handle the network-of-network's explosive growth. Yet many U.S. CIOs and CTOs continue to harbor misinformation that they use to justify why they are not adopting the next-generation IPv6 standard.

This issue is significant because the Internet is running out of IPv4 addresses. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses and can support 4.3 billion devices connected directly to the Internet. The non-compatible replacement protocol, IPv6, uses 128-bit addresses and supports a virtually unlimited number of devices: 2 to the 128th power.

IPv6 MARKET MOMENTUM

Here is a list of the biggest misconceptions about IPv4 depletion and IPv6 deployment that we've read or heard in recent weeks:

1. The Internet still has plenty of IPv4 addresses.

Whether or not you think the Internet has run out of IPv4 addresses depends on where you live in the world and how fast your network is growing.

In early February, the free pool of unassigned IPv4 addresses was depleted when the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) delegated the last five blocks of IPv4 address space - each with around 16.7 million addresses - to the five regional registries. The registries are expected to dole out the majority of these IPv4 addresses to carriers in 2011.

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