Internet Protocols
Internet Protocol is a set of technical rules that defines how computers communicate over a network. There are currently two versions: IP version 4 (IPv4) and IP version 6 (IPv6).
IPv4
IPv4 was the first version of Internet Protocol to be widely used, and accounts for most of today’s Internet traffic. There are just over 4 billion IPv4 addresses. While that is a lot of IP addresses, it is not enough to last forever.
IPv6
IPv6 is a newer numbering system that provides a much larger address pool than IPv4, amongst other features. It was deployed in 1999 and should meet the world’s IP addressing needs well into the future.
The major differences
The major difference between IPv4 and IPv6 is the number of IP addresses. There are 4,294,967,296 IPv4 addresses. In contrast, there are 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374, 607,431,768,211,456 IPv6 addresses.
The technical functioning of the Internet remains the same with both versions and it is likely that both versions will continue to operate simultaneously on networks well into the future. To date, most networks that use IPv6 support both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in their networks.
Deployed
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1981
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1999
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Address Size
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32-bit number
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128-bit number
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Address Format
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192.149.252.76
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3FFE:F200:0234:AB00:
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192.149.0.0/24
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3FFE:F200:0234::/48
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2128 = ~340,282,366,
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Number of Addresses
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232 = ~4,294,967,296
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920,938,463,463,374,
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607,431,768,211,456
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