Internet Now Has More Than 340 Undecillion IP Addresses

In case you haven’t heard the internet is kind of this big deal. By big I am of course referring to the sheer size of internet protocol (IP) addresses available to customers.

The Internet Society just launched IPv6, a new Internet Protocol standard that grows the internet’s address book from 4.3 billion unique addresses to 340 undecillion. To put that number into perspective it is 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses.

The new IPv6 standard is meant to help link our ever-increasing number of networked devices together. Now users with PCs, smartphones, tablets, laptops and other devices do not need to worry that an IP address won’t be made available to them.

Under IPv6 every single person on the face of the earth can now technically own one billion billion IP addresses and we would still have leftover IP addresses to assign for new devices. Of course by 2016 the average number of devices per person which are connected to the internet will only be three. That number of course does not include all of the miscellaneous items that can connect to the internet these days, items that include appliances, glasses, even children’s toys in some cases.

The change to IPv6 is happening now but IPv4 will stick around since many of the appliances already in our homes are not IPv6-complaint. Much like the switch from analog to digital TV we will see the change occurring, hear word of the new system but ultimately it will slowly push out IPv4 without any type of big celebration or countdown.

Probably the best example of a non-IPv6 complaint offering is Windows XP which Microsoft will fully abandon in just a few short years.