IPv6 Address - What is IPv6 Address? IPv6 Examples and Types
What is an IPv6 Address?
The IPv6 address system is an upgrade of the traditional IPv4 address. The IPv6 version addresses the main problem presented by the IPv4 version - the small number of unique IP combinations.
IPv6 address uses hexadecimal numbers- 0 through 9 and a through f (in lowercase). The numbers are grouped in fours and each of the 8 groups is separated using a semicolon.
An example of an IPv6 address is 3cf3:d4a1:fc60:9d06:17a9:6a68:49ca:3a53
An IP address in the public network must be unique. As of 2022, over 14.4 billion devices were connected to the internet. Although a significant number is behind routers, therefore using network address translation (NAT) to minimize the need for unique public addresses, the number of free unique public IP addresses is very low. Since the IPv6 version uses 128-bit numbers (2128) there are 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 possible unique combinations. The traditional IPv4 uses 32-bit numbers (232), which means it has 4.3 billion possible unique combinations.
IPv6 vs IPv4
An IPv4 address has four parts each consisting of 8-bit binary numbers that start from 0 to 255. The four different groups of numbers are separated by a decimal (dot/point)
An example of an IP address is 42.129.10.89
Although IPv6 addresses are newer, IPv4 remains the most common of the two. It is still widely used for both public and private IP addresses and networks.
