Cable broadband operator Virgin Media has informed ISPreview.co.uk that they plan to adopt the Internet Protocol v6 (IPv6) standard by the middle of 2017.Every Internet connection has an Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to it (you couldn’t do much without one), but the current IPv4 standard has run out of spare addresses and so everybody is slowly adopting the replacement IPv6 standard (very slowly.. it’s been around since 1998).Most ISPs tend to deploy dual-stack networks so that both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, which are not directly compatible, can work side-by-side; at least until the day comes when IPv4 can be completely switched off (this isn’t likely to happen for a very long time as too much kit remains IPv4-only).
