Friday, February 22, 2008

Internet Overhaul Begins

For our more technical friends out there, earlier this month (as described in this article from the BBC) the master Internet record addresses started the long process of being upgraded from the standard Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) to Version 6 (IPv6). The upgrade is intended to provide a huge number of new individual addresses for computers and other devices to be registered on the Internet but, it is also meant to provide other technological upgrades. The Wikipedia article on IPv6 provides an excellent summary of these benefits.
What does this mean to you in the near future? Not very much except for technical managers purchasing new networking equipment. But over time the upgrade provides an improved foundation for the growth of the Net.