What is Internet Protocol version 6 and why does the world need it?

Jargon-busting first: IPv6 is short forInternet Protocol version 6.  In otherwords it is the next generation method by which devices get assigned addresseson the internet . So why does it need a day of its own? Well, to highlight thefact that the current system to assign addresses, IPv4 (Internet Protocolversion 4, version 5 was a demonstration system that was never commerciallydeployed), is rapidly running out of addresses. 

Why is that important? There's an ongoingdebate over this.  One line of thoughtsays that IPv4 can only support 4.2 billion IP addresses. Which is a problem atmany, many levels. Firstly, there are seven billion people on the planet andfive billion cellphones. Not all those people have access to the internettoday, but sooner or later, they will. 

And they will want to access the internet on their cellphones, tablets,computers, fridges, printers, cameras,TV's, game consoles, watches and godknows what else.

Now, everytime you access the internet you get an IP address,and one device can only use one IP address. Which is a problem when there areso many devices. And the world is rapidly running out of IP addresses, and muchlike every crisis situation when a solution is always found at the last minute,there always seem to be some addresses found whenever a warning is given.

But,the situation is critical and the world will definitely run out of IP addressesby sometime in late-2011 or early-2012. And the global pool of completely freshaddresses ran out in February 2011.

IPv6 will change the situation by havingaround 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 IP addresses - enough for quitesome time.

The other side of the debate holds thatalthough the non-availability of IP addresses is an issue, there really isn'tany need to worry thanks to a system known as Network Address Translation(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation) it won't be a majorproblem for a while.

But if both sides agree that there could beproblems, why hasn't IPv6 taken off? Almost all devices made and sold todayare IPv6 compliant, but thanks to the wisdom of someone a long time ago IPv6and IPv4 are not compatible with each other.

And while modern computing systemsare powerful enough to allow IPv6 and IPv4 systems to co-exist thanks to'tunnelling', the non-compatibility of IPv4 and IPv6 is an issue that serviceproviders will have to resolve.

Ipv6 Day was supposed to be a day whenproviders tested their websites using Ipv6 protocols. By concentrating on a single day, supportersalso hoped to bring people's attention to the need for new standards.