Why IPv6?

Why IPV6?

• IPv4 was initially designed for a research network that would interconnect some research labs and universities. For this purpose, 32 bit addresses, i.e., $2^{32}=4,294,967,296\approx4.3$ billion addresses seemed sufficient. Also, 32 bits was an incredibly convenient address size for software-based routers.

However, the popularity of the Internet, i.e., the number of smartphones and Internet of Things devices, was not anticipated. We’ve made do with $4.3$ billion addresses so far by reusing them and with NAT boxes. Nonetheless, we are running out of addresses. Hence, IPv6 was designed to tackle these limitations of IPv4.