Answers to your Questions
Why IPv6?
Although the first RFC for IPv6 has been available for more
than six years, IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) has never
really reached the phase where the telecommunications industry
considered it more than an experimental protocol. This is
because the problem, exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, had always
been fixed with techniques such as Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP) and Network Address Translation (NAT). However,
this situation is changing due to the following technical,
geographical, and political drivers:
- Technical
The third generation of mobile telecommunications is
adopting IPv6 as its protocol for multimedia communications.
- Geographical
Because the IPv4 address space has been allocated mainly
to North America, Asian and European countries are in need
of more addresses. Since IPv6 is capable of coding addresses
up to 128 bits, it will be able to allocate enough addresses
among all countries. It is becoming customary to say that
IPv6, with an address field of 128 bits (compared to 32
bits for IPv4), could assign an address to every grain of
sand on earth.
- Political
Some countries realized that IPv6 could be a factor in boosting
new applications and helping the economy. Japan, South Korea,
and the European community have stated directives for service
providers to use IPv6 in new applications and networks.
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