The six biggest misconceptions about IPv6

For 15 years, Internet engineers and policymakers have been publicizing the need to upgrade the 'Net's current addressing scheme -- known as IPv4 -- to handle the network-of-network's explosive growth.

Yet many U.S. CIOs and CTOs continue to harbour misinformation that they use to justify why they are not adopting the next-generation IPv6 standard.

This issue is significant because the Internet is running out of IPv4 addresses. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses and can support 4.3 billion devices connected directly to the Internet. The non-compatible replacement protocol, IPv6, uses 128-bit addresses and supports a virtually unlimited number of devices. Here is a list of the biggest misconceptions about IPv4 depletion and IPv6 deployment that we've read or heard in recent weeks.