IPv6
Sometimes called IPng (Internet Protocol next generation), and short for Internet Protocol version 6, IPv6 is a network protocol for Internet and Ethernet, introduced in 1996. IPv6 includes improvements over IPv4, such as a wider range of Internet addresses, improved routing and autoconfiguration, and embedded encryption. Not all operating systems and applications can utilize IPv6; however, new software is slowly transitioning. On June 6, 2012, Google and several thousand other companies migrated to IPv6. Since then, more companies have updated their services and products, too.
IPv6 was featured as a top term in 2012.
How many characters are there in an IPv6 address?
When it's not compressed, there are 32 characters in an IPv6 address, making it 128 bits (IPv4 is 32-bit). Below is a breakdown of an IPv6 address with each of its parts.
As shown above, an IPv6 address is broken into blocks of four characters separated by colons (:). The first 48 bits are for the network, the next 16 bits are the subnet ID, and the final 64 bits are the client ID.
Although an IPv6 address is longer than an IPv4 address, it can be compressed (abbreviated) using rules. For example, in the IPv6 address above, the continuous blocks of zeros can be substituted with a double colon. So, the address would become 2607:f8b0:4005:0805::200e. Any leading zeros can also be removed, making this address 2607:f8b0:4005:805::200e. There are also online tools like the following link to make compressing an IPv6 address easier.
Is an IPv6 address case-sensitive?
No. When dealing with an IPv6 address with letters, the letters can be written in uppercase, lowercase, or both; the address is not case-sensitive.
How many addresses can IPv6 support?
IPv6 supports 340 undecillion (1 followed by 36 zeros) addresses. Being a 128-bit address (2128), that's 3.4028236692093846346337460743177e+38 or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456. In other words, as of 2023, there are 8 billion people in the world. Dividing 8 billion into 340 undecillion would give each person on the planet over 42 octillion addresses. Having this many addresses helps ensure it's difficult for the Internet to run out of available addresses, unlike what happened with IPv4.