Computer Science for Education

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__**ipv4 vs ipv6**__

//(rough draft)//

IP addresses running out is an issue you might be hearing these days, especially on online news articles or in the papers. The first widely used internet protocol was IPv4. This format has an available 4,294,967,296 addresses, yet many of these addresses are reserved for private networks and the Internets infrastructure. When this format was originally designed no one could have dreamed how many computers there would be today. As many computer  scientists thought that the computer would only be used for computational reasons. This ended up being drastically  different, as now we have computers all over the place. In watches, TVs, phones, etc, and if these devices wish to connect to the internet, they will need their own IP address.

Recently a new internet protocol format, IPv6, has been pushed by certain industries. The claim is that IPv4 addresses are running out, and that if we don't change quickly it might be "the end of the internet". Dr. Comer stated during his lecture (CS 190, Spring 2010) that countries like China have been spending upwards of millions of dollars to adapt to this new internet format, in fears that they will run out of addresses.  

One thing that is not understood with IPv4 is that addresses can be reused. An example would be 192.168.1.xxx, which is the default address for all computers under a home network. There are millions of home networks connecting multiple computers to the internet, all using the same IP address. The only device that needs a unique IP address is the router. This concept can be widely used to expand the life of IPv4.

The future is unclear which one will be widely accepted. IPv6 is picking up support, but many companies don't want to upgrade their networks, many worth millions of the dollars, to upgrade to the new IPv6 format.

Computer Science for Education

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