Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 10 August 2010 15:33
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A firmware upgrade for Billion's BiPAC 7800NL ADSL2+ modem/router provides IPv6 compatibility.
One of the biggest problems with IPv4 is that the pool of unallocated addresses is rapidly diminishing (partly due to allocation practices established in the early days that did not conserve the address space) and is expected to be exhausted in around two years.
IPv6, the newer version of the protocol, makes various changes including an expansion of the address space. Going from 32-bit addresses (such as the familiar 192.168.0.1) to 64-bit addresses (eg, 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334) provides a massive increase in the number of possible addresses.
How big is 'massive'? Try 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses, which has been described as enough to provide every atom on the Earth's surface with dozens of IP addresses.
The problem for users is that while the major operating systems have provided IPv6 support for some time, consumer network devices such as routers and printers generally have not.
Network hardware manufacturer Billion has announced a firmware upgrade for its $A185 BiPAC 7800NL ADSL2+ modem/router to provide IPv6 support. The relevant version number is 2.02a, available from Billion's
web site.
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