Communications provider Entanet UK has warned that "turbulent times will lie ahead" for any broadband ISP that fails to adopt IPv6 internet addresses before the existing IPv4 pool is exhausted in 2011. A failure to upgrade could also put the government's broadband development plans in serious jeopardy.

An IPv4 address is assigned to your computer each time you go online (e.g. 85.23.56.198). These are a bit like the online equivalent of your home phone number, except only around 180 million (roughly 5%) remain available and they will all be depleted before the end of 2011.


Sadly IPv4's replacement, IPv6 (e.g. 2ffe:1800:3525:3:200:f8ff:fe21:67cf), has not been fully implemented by all ISPs. Furthermore most consumers still use internet connected devices (phones, routers, modems etc.) that do not support the new standard, which could be brewing up problems for the future.


Entanet, which is one of several early IPv6 adopters, also reiterated its snipe at non-IPv6 rivals by calling them "technically negligent" for compromising network performance via a risky "wait and see" approach.

As ever some providers may take a few years to make the change, which in the interim could result in a new culture of IPv4 address sharing (i.e. your IP would be shared between several users). This can cause all sorts of technical performance and security issues (e.g. usage restrictions for your IP on a server would also impact others on the same address; if somebody else gets IP banned from a service then you would too).