Internet addresses are changing: what does IPv6 mean for you?

The past few months have seen a flood of news stories about a big change to the way the internet works.

The remaining blocks of internet addresses have been handed out by the authority that administers them, and this means a change is going to come in the way web addresses work.

A new version of the system has been around for years, though it has not been widely taken up, but will this news mean it finally becomes more common?

What is an IP address?
Every device on the internet has an address, known as an ‘IP address’ - the IP stands for Internet Protocol, which is one of two protocols that govern the way the entire internet works.

The IP address of a computer tells other computers where it can be found online.

For instance, if you type the address www.microsoft.com into your web browser it gets translated by your ISP’s server into the IP address 65.55.12.249 (try typing those numbers into a browser’s address bar, instead of the normal address, and you will be taken to the Microsoft website).

The problem is that the numbers are running out. Each IP address consists of four sets of up to three digits, and each can go up to 256. That means the number of unique addresses available is 256x256x256x256, which is almost 4.3 billion.

The numbers are allocated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and issued to five regional registries around the world, which then allocate them to their clients, ISPs and large businesses, who in turn allocate them to their users.

The registry for Europe is RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens), and on 3 February the last addresses were issued.

It’s not an immediate problem – we’re not going to suddenly run out of numbers and things aren’t going to stop working. Each registry still has a stock of unused numbers, as do ISPs and other businesses. So if you sign a contract with a new ISP, they will still have a number to give you, and the stocks may last for years.

Rod Beckstrom, president of IANA’s parent company ICANN, said: “Nobody was caught off guard by this. The internet technical community has been planning for depletion for quite some time. But it means the adoption of IPv6 is now of paramount importance.”

What is IPv6?
IPv6 is the sixth version of the Internet Protocol, known in the industry as IPv6 (the current protocol is version four, called IPv4, and version five was used for something else).

The new version allows for many more addresses than were previously available: the number is roughly a 3 with 39 zeros after it.

It’s cleverly designed so that the actual number of available devices is even greater than that, and it makes certain tasks easier, such as setting up a home network. It also makes it easier to set up devices and software that need to work through your firewall.

Each IPv6 home network will allow over four thousand billion billion devices to be connected – enough for even the largest homes and businesses.

But it’s not all good news; the downside is that IPv6 and IPv4 are incompatible and it takes several organisations to make changes before IPv6 can be used.

All modern Windows, Mac and Linux computers (for Windows it dates back to 2001’s Windows XP) now support IPv6 but don’t have it switched on by default. Your ISP also needs to enable it, and you need a router that supports it, and then every website and server you wish to access must also support IPv6.

That’s not as big a task as it sounds: many big internet companies are already planning for IPv6. BT says its equipment is ready to be enabled once there is enough demand, which it expects to be this year or next.

This year, 8 June has been designated World IPv6 Day, when a 24-hour test will take place. Google, Facebook, Yahoo and other websites will make pages available over IPv6 as well as IPv4, to allow people to test whether everything works.

In the meantime you can test whether your computer is IPv6-compatible. If the test says you are not, don’t worry – it will be a long time before you will need to make any changes, and Computeractive and others will be providing plenty of advice and guidance as the changes are implemented.

Our verdict
People have been talking about address ‘exhaustion’ for years, with estimates varying on how long it would take for us to run out of IPv4 addresses. And there were several false starts when it came to predicting when the new system would come into place.

However, the release of the last old-style addresses means it’s now only a matter of months before companies need to fix things.

Most people will find that the move does not cause trouble. ISPs should be able to run both IPv4 and IPv6 at the same time, encouraging people to switch over while also supporting older devices. But it’s worth being aware that a change is going to come.