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A number of companies, including Google and Facebook, will be participating in a global test of the forthcoming Internet Protocol v6 on Wednesday.
The day is designed to raise awareness of the new IP addressing system, which is has utilised a 32-bit code since its inception, but with traditional addresses due to run out later this year, the internet needs to upgrade.
The 24-hour trial is designed to help industry prepare for the swtichover and identify any potential problems. Despite some predictions of Millenium Bug style mayhem, the 64-bit IPv6 is unlikely to make a huge difference to internet users.
“The good news is that Internet users don’t need to do anything special to prepare for World IPv6 Day,” predicts Google network engineer, Lorenzo Colitti at the Google Blog.
“Our current measurements suggest that the vast majority (99.95%) of users will be unaffected. However, in rare cases, users may experience connectivity problems, often due to misconfigured or misbehaving home network devices.”
