Clarification with IPV6 and previous

[John Abreau]

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003, kgleason.ma.ultranet at rcn.com wrote:

> Can anyone tell me the maximum theoretical number of addresses with IPv4 as
> opposed to IPv6? Is is my impression that with IPv4 you would have
> 256*256*256*256 (or am I wrong)?
> 
> Kevin

IPv4 is 32-bit, giving an address space of 2^32, or roughly 4 billion 
distinct addresses, some of which are reserved as, for instance, broadcast 
addresses, and others that are unuseable due to partitioning of the 
address space into individual networks. 

IPv6 is 128-bit, giving an address space of 2^128, or 256 undecillion 
distinct addresses (256 billion billion billion billion). 

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John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
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