What Ipv6 Means For You (Faq)

What IPv6 means for you (FAQ)

The Internet has just changed forever, for real, thanks to IPv6. But chances are that you won't notice a thing -- at least not yet. Here's how IPv6 affects you.

Internet Protocol version 6, otherwise known as IPv6, launches today, opening a way to for all of us to keep connecting a wider range of ever-more esoteric devices to the Internet.

Why IPv6 is important to you

Without IPv6, we would soon hit the upper limit of connectable devices. IPv4, the current standard, offers only 4.3 billion addresses and they're getting gobbled up. As my colleague Stephen Shankland notes, it's a real problem for businesses that want to set up new Internet services or for carriers that want to sell another few million smartphones.

If the businesses that build our Internet-connected phones, thermostats, and backpacks can't connect to the Internet, then they're out of business, you're out of tech gizmos, and I'm probably out of a job.

There's no crushing urgency to adopt IPv6 as soon as possible. Nevertheless, it's already begun to change how the Internet works.

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