IPv6 – Why the need for a new standard?
Rake Narang: What is Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)? How will IPv6 be deployed?
Pierluigi Stella: Deployment of IPv6 presents numerous problems because it’s completely incompatible with IPv6. You can’t take a workstation configured with IPv4 and hope that it will talk to a server configured with IPv6. They both need to “speak” the same language. This, of course, is problematic, given the billions of computers already using IPv4.
I believe that IPv6 will first be adopted for mobile connectivity, because that’s where the user has limited to no control over the IP assignment, and therefore, telcos can basically do as they please. Foreign countries will also likely rush into IPv6 adoption because IPv4 was “hogged” by US organizations and the rest of the world had a very small percentage. Today, that part of the internet is growing in leaps and bounds, and the need for more IP addresses is felt far more urgently by foreign countries than it is in the US. (Read more)