Every computer connected to the internet has a unique identification, called IP address or Internet Protocol address, consisting of four combinations of numbers e.g. 187.25.14.190. 

The IP address is nothing more than a numerical sequence that identifies a device that is accessing the internet. It is literally an address that allows you to identify where the connection is coming from.

This number is copied by the modem or router that is installed in your home. And it is the router that connects to the external servers. For this, it receives another IP for the connection to be established.

The organisation responsible for sending this IP number to your home is the internet operator. Through telephone cables or fiber optics, your modem is connected to the operator’s central. 

These numbers are called octets and together they can generate an incredible four billion different addresses.

You’ll be probably asking now what is my ip? You can check your IP address at ipcost.com.

How Does It Work?

IPs can be fixed or dynamic: currently, fixed IPs are rare, even for security reasons,  invasions are easier when the IP is always the same and nobody wants to go easy on hackers, right?

The rotation of dynamic IPs works as follows: a certain ISP has X numbers of IPs. Every time a machine connects to the Internet, the provider assigns a random IP, within this number of previously available IPs. The most used process for this distribution of dynamic IPs is the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). To access the URLs, or public IP addresses as we know them e.g. www.facebook.com, there is the DNS (Domain Name Server), a database responsible for this translation of alphanumeric names to the numbers of the IP, fundamental for the functioning of the Internet.

There are IP addresses that, by default, are reserved for specific uses. IP 0.0.0.0 is a default network number; IP address 127.0.0.1 is used to test the connection when diagnosing network problems. Address 255.255.255.255, on the other hand, is used for communication to all computers on a network.

What is IPv6?  

With the intense volume of people connected daily and more and more devices being integrated to the Internet of Things, there is a tendency to overload this gigantic system that keeps people from all over the world accessible at the click of a button.

It may seem a bit far-fetched, but like anything that exceeds your capacity, the internet can gradually stop working .

The number sequences available for IPv4 are running out and hence the need to adapt to a new system that can support these new devices. 

How Does IPv6 Work?

IPv6 is an evolution of IPv4, with a much larger capacity. The constitution of IPv4 is 32 bits and IPv6 128 bits.

Basically, the proposal of IPv6 is to increase the number of possible combinations for IP addresses, providing advantages such as:

• even more efficient connection routing;

• better processing of internet packages;

• direct data flow;

• simplified network configuration;

• prepared support for new services;

• improved security.

IPv6 was officially launched in 2012, but was already being proposed there in mid-1998. Only now is there a real need for IPv6 deployment. This is because the internet, at first, was not programmed to reach such large proportions, and nowadays it is unavoidable to replace the system with a new protocol.

What experts call IPv4 exhaustion is proof of the scale that the internet has taken on in a few decades of existence. 4 billion available combinations , which seemed like a high number, are no longer enough.

The transition process, of course, cannot take place overnight. 

It is necessary to find ways where IPv4 and IPv6 can coexist, making improvements between the two and not completely changing the structure we know today.