Internet Protocol Version 6

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What Does Internet Protocol Version 6 Mean?

Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is an Internet Protocol (IP) used for carrying data in packets from a source to a destination over various networks. IPv6 is the enhanced version of IPv4 and can support very large numbers of nodes as compared to IPv4. It allows for 2128 possible node, or address, combinations.

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IPv6 is also known as Internet Protocol Next Generation (IPng).

Techopedia Explains Internet Protocol Version 6

Released June 6, 2012, IPv6 was developed in hexadecimal format and contains 8 octets to provide large scalability. Like IPv4, IPv6 deals with address broadcasting without containing broadcast addresses in any class.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.