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If you thought tidying your 200+ address book entries was painful enough try and imagine what it must be like to be overhauling the whole internet code addressing system!

That is what has just started as the “master address books for the net are being updated to include records prepared in a new format known as IP version 6”, which long term means an end to the shortage of addresses that sites can be given. The current version (IPv4) is expected to exhaust the still unallocated addresses by 2011.

With IPv6 the issue goes away as there will effectively be an unlimited number of addresses available. As consumers we shouldn’t see any real difference, although a number of routers may need to be upgraded or replaced in due course.

Via [BBC]