FOX on Tech: IPv6

Wednesday is World IPv6 Day, as the internet gets an over-due update…though the everyday user may not notice.

FOX News Radio’s Kirstin McNary takes a look in this “FOX on Tech”…

More than 400 companies signed on for a 24-hour mass trial ending Wednesday night.  Some are expected to stay on IPv6 for good, joining corporations that switched during a smaller trial in October.  Development of IPv6 began in 1991.

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The World Wide Web is getting a global makeover with the launch of IPv6.  IP addresses determine the path data takes on the “Information Superhighway,” but they’ve been around in their current form since 1981, and there’s only room for about 4.2 trillion of them.

Companies switching to the new protocol include Yahoo!, AT&T, and Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

IPv6 makes room for 340 *undecillion* addresses (that’s 36 zeros on the end, for those keeping score).  It also creates dedicated pathways for multimedia and mobile websites.