The internet boasts a 40 year history, but today marks one of its most historic days. Today is World IPv6 Day, a celebration of the largest experiment in the history of the Internet. IPv6, or Internet Protocol Version 6, will be tested before it replace IPv4 as the Internet’s main pillar/communications protocol.

IPv6 is designed to solve the problems of the existing Internet Protocol by providing 4 billion times the number of IP addresses now available. Less than two months ago, the Asia Pacific region ran out of IPv4 addresses, and North America will run out of IP addresses by Fall 2011. So, today’s glitch free test-run of IPv6 is both timely and important.

If you use Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Verizon, Facebook or the services of any of the other 200 companies participating in the test run today, you will be part of a game-changing experiment.

However, IPv6 is not backward compatible with IPv4, which means website operators must upgrade their network equipment and software to support IPv6 traffic. But it is worth it!  IPv6 allows an unlimited number of devices to be connected, and its addresses use four times the bit power of IPv4’s 32-bit addresses.