3 ms·
> Why couldnt do the old IP address space just be extended to have more octets? 16 octets instead of 4? That's exactly what they did. IPv6 is precisely 16 octe
by dale_glass 3y ago
> Why couldnt do the old IP address space just be extended to have more octets? 16 octets instead of 4?
That's exactly what they did. IPv6 is precisely 16 octets.
I think you're getting hung up on the hex representation, but that's all it is, a representation. Nothing stops you from writing an IPv6 address as 16 sets of numbers from 0 to 255.
In fact, IPv6 has the :: shortcut, which stands for "fill in all zeroes here".
So, one of Google's addresses is 2607:f8b0:4004:c08::71. This is short for 2607:f8b0:4004:0c08:0000:0000:0000:0071. Which you could also write as:
38.7.248.176.64.4.12.8.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.113