Internet companies across the world have set June 6 2012 as the switchover day from IPv4 to IPv6, while Internode has decided not to wait and has made IPv6 available to all customers.

IP (Internet Protocol) addresses are the numerical addresses used to identify every device connected to the internet. IPv4, the current standard by which web addresses are allocated, has approximately four billion IP addresses but is about to run out of space.

Although IPv6 will enable provides more than 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses to connect to the internet all over the world, safeguarding the internet's growth for many years to come, it requires a transition between the two standards and to date, progress toward a switchover has been limited.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft Bing and Yahoo have committed to enable IPv6 on their websites on IPv6 day.

Internet users will not notice much of a difference but will need an IPv6 capable router to access websites using an IPv6 address.

Internode has enabled 'dual-stack' support for all new customers, which means customers can access both IPv4 and IPv6 concurrently. Existing Internode customers can enable IPv6 at any time by visiting 'My Internode' on the Internode website and switching it on.

Customers then only need an IPv6 capable router. Every Billion and the AVM FRITZ!Box broadband router sold by Internode is IPv6-ready.

If you are not sure if your router can handle IPv6, contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP) for more information.