IPv6 Address

Each device on the internet needs an IP address. The current version of the Internet Protocol is IPv6, which replaced IPv4, which was limited to fewer than 5 billion variations. IPv4 was in the format many are familiar with: four numbers separated by periods. For example:

74.6.143.25

An IPv6 address will consists of eight strings of four hexadecimal digits [0-9, and A-F] - each divided by a colon. But leading zeroes, or strings of all zeros are omitted. So, an example of a IPv6 address would be:

2001:4998:124:1507::f000

. . . the complete version of which would be 2001:4998:0124:1507:0000:0000:0000:f000

In the United States, most mobile phones use an IPv6 address, but only a small percentage of computers do.