The Internet is growing. We shouldn’t be surprised by that news. Approximately seven billion people share this planet, and nearly one-seventh of them have Facebook accounts. That’s a lot of photo and video sharing going on. It’s no wonder the Internet has to upgrade. Just as small-businesses have to acquire more server space to accommodate their growing customer bases, so, too, does the Internet have to expand in order to accommodate its increasing user base.
According to a press release issued by the Internet Society, Internet service providers, Web companies and home network equipment manufacturers around the world will get together on June 6, 2012 to launch the new and improved IPv6, which will replace the current Internet protocol IPv4. So, what does this mean for small businesses?
Well, after June 6, businesses that haven’t enabled IPv6 could have a hard time doing business. Internet service providers (ISP) AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, to name a few, have already signed on to launch IPv6. This bodes well for both their residential and business users. Small-business owners who use AT&T, for example, will have no problem doing business online with other IPv6 enabled businesses. And customers who subscribe to Time Warner Cable will have no trouble interacting with IPv6 enabled websites.
AT&T CTO John Donovan is quoted on the World IPv6 Launch website as saying, “We’ve seen unprecedented growth in network traffic over the past several years, and IPv6 is critical to the continuation of that growth.”
Do you have questions on how to best leverage IPv6 in your small business? Contact us today to learn more.
Since many of today’s small businesses are Internet only, not having the new Internet protocol enabled could result in lost revenue or even lost productivity. Sites like Google, Bing and Facebook, which many small-business owners use heavily in their day-to-day operations, have already decided to enable IPv6.
There’s plenty of time between now and June 6 for small-business owners to make a decision. For those who want to learn more, there’s plenty of information about the scheduled launch here.
