It has been a long climb to this point. IPv6, with support for around 3.4 x 1038 addresses, was developed due to fears that the 4.3 billion unique addresses available under the previous version of the protocol, IPv4, would be insufficient for a global population now numbering around 8 billion.
While the development of technologies such as Network Address Translation has extended the lifespan of IPv4 by allowing multiple devices to hide behind a single address, there is little doubt that IPv6 has gradually been growing in importance and there is every chance that the 50 percent usage line will be crossed for good at some point in the future.
This article first appeared on Network World.
