You may or may not know or care what your Internet Protocol (IP) Address is. But, it is required for your computer and other devices to connect via the Internet. That includes your cell phone, whether smart or merely bright.
We have been running on IP V4, version 4. Today is the official… designated… tipping point day… whatever, it’s called the World IPv6 Day, for the changeover to IP version 6. The first IPv6 Day was in 2011. We are now one year into IPv6.
An IPv4 address looks like ###.###.###.### and ranges from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. That gives us about 4.3 billion addresses. Except some ranges like 10.x.x.x, 172.16.x.x, and 192.168.x.x are reserved for private networks. Offices and home generally use these. They are considered none-routable. Meaning the first router outside your home or office will refuse to forward traffic destined for one of those addresses. This lets you easily setup private networks and saves on addresses. It lets your entire office or all the computers in your office to be reached by one routable IP address. Very much like one phone number can come into a switch board and reach any phone within an office.
