IPV6: How the New Format Will Work With Security Systems

There has been much publicity recently regarding the new Internet Protocol (IP) addressing format called IPV6. The question is whether this new addressing method will affect physical security installations, and how the industry will handle this potentially dramatic change.

First let’s examine exactly how IPV6 came to be. The original IP addressing format, called IPV4, consists of four groups of three numbers, called octets, separated by periods; for example 192.168.1.1 for a LAN address or 16.35.46.234 for a public IP address. These addresses were issued in blocks over the years by the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). So, for example, the IPV4 address block starting with the number 11(11.0.0.0) was issued to the United States Department of Defense. In that one block there are 16,777,214 individual IP addresses. This type of IPV4 address block, where the holder possesses a unique first octet is termed a “Class A” block, of which there are 126 in total, with each block providing 16 million-plus unique IPV4 addresses. These blocks were issued to government agencies, large companies such as HP and Ford, and large telecom/ISPs around the globe. The total number of unique IPV4 addresses is 4,294,967,296.