So today I stumbled across various posts about subnetting (a fun read for me!) and wondered how this is all going to work on IPv6. That then got me wondering when IPv6 is actually going to become a worldwide commonly used Internet Protocol. The spec was released in 1998, the "official" launch was June 2012 and still my Sky router at home has an IPv4 public IP and no support for IPv6 on the inside! Not really cutting edge technology given this "new" version was designed 20 years ago...
For those who don't know, the familiar four-octet decimal notation which makes up a current IP address (IP version 4) like 192.168.0.1 for example is being replaced by an eight-hextet hexadecimal notation like fe80:0000:0000:0000:AED0:CC00:47AA:6BC1. This takes the count of IP addresses from the 32bit range of 4,294,967,296 to the 128bit range of 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456, or in "speak" version, 340 undecillion, 282 decillion, 366 nonillion, 920 octillion, 938 septillion, 463 sextillion, 463 quintillion, 374 quadrillion, 607 trillion, 431 billion, 768 million, 211 thousand and 456.
