What are the shortcomings of ipv4?

Answer 1

The primary advantages of using TCP/IP are summarized below:

• TCP/IP can be used to establish connections between different types of computers and servers. Providing this type of interoperability is one of the main advantages of TCP/IP.
• TCP/IP is an industry standard, open protocol. This means that it is not controlled by one institute.
• TCP/IP operates independently of the operating system.
• TCP/IP includes support for a number of routing protocols.
• Enables internetworking between organizations.
• TCP/IP has a scalable, client/server architecture.
• TCP/IP includes support for name and address resolution services, including Domain Name Service Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Windows internet Name Service .

Includes support for a number of different Internet standard protocols for Web browsing, file and print services, and for transporting mail.

The disadvantages of TCP/IP are summarized below:

• IPX is faster than TCP/IP.
• TCP/IP is intricate to set up and manage.
• The overhead of TCP/IP is higher than that of IPX.

Answer 2

>> Mainly, that it has a larger address space. With IPv4, addresses are getting scarce.

>> With IPv6, there will not be an address shortage in the foreseeable future.

The above answer is a simple one, but doesn't answer why more IP addresses are needed. Realistically there is already a shortage of IP addresses under IPv4. The only reason most people don't notice it is because their IPv4 traffic is routed through one router to another and yet another and so on. This complex configuration of routers segmenting and regulating different parts of the Internet guarantees that even though IPv4 has a limitation of 4 billion addresses it can connect more then 4 billion Internet devices (Computers, Cell Phones, Etc.).

This has a cost though. This complex game of smoke and mirrors greatly inhibits your Internet connections true speed. So in other words your not getting anywhere near the speed you think you are even if you have a top-of-the-line FIOS connections. IPv6 would greatly reduce the complexity by awarding each device it's own IPv6 address. Greatly reducing the lag, delays, and bottlenecks caused by all these tricks.

Furthermore alot of the new IPv4 technologies such as multicast and packet security are not naturally part of the original protocol. As such they require alot of software modification which in turn translates to more memory usage and more programs running. IPv6 internalizes, standardizes, and in effect reduces the overhead needed by these features. Thus increasing speed. Overall with all the overhead that IPv6 shaves off it could be expected to run at least 2.5 times that of an IPv4 connection rated at the same bandwidth (i.e. 1.5mbps).

Standardized 4g mobile broadband is taking advantage of this big time and may even finally give DSL and Cable the real competition they both deserve.

Look at http://www.clearwireless.com/.

For $55 (plus the investment in the Mobile Stick or Wireless MiFi router) you can have unlimited usage of average speed of 6Mbps and throttling to 10Mbps. Add this to the fact that 4g has an ultimate limitation (in theory) of 10Gbps (10,000Mbps) and you'll see a reason to be excited. No more wires, no more paying line fees to the FCC. Get a small netbook with a Voip account and you can almost kiss that smartphone goodbye.

Answer 3

The Disadvantages of IPv4IPv4 has the following disadvantages:

• Limited address space The most visible and urgent problem with using IPv4 on the modern Internet is the rapid depletion of public addresses. Due to the initial address class allocation practices of the early Internet, public IPv4 addresses are becoming scarce. Organizations in the United States hold most public IPv4 address space worldwide.

  This limited address space has forced the wide deployment of network address translators (NATs), which can share one public IPv4 address among several privately addressed computers. NATs have the side effect of acting as a barrier for server, listener, and peer-to-peer applications running on computers that are located behind the NAT. Although there are workarounds for NAT issues, they only add complexity to what should be an end-to-end addressable global network.

• Flat routing infrastructure In the early Internet, address prefixes were not allocated to create a summarizable, hierarchical routing infrastructure. Instead, individual address prefixes were assigned and each address prefix became a new route in the routing tables of the Internet backbone routers. Today's Internet is a mixture of flat and hierarchical routing, but there are still more than 85,000 routes in the routing tables of Internet backbone routers.

• Configuration IPv4 must be configured, either manually or through the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). DHCP allows IPv4 configuration administration to scale to large networks, but you must also configure and manage a DHCP infrastructure.

• Security Security for IPv4 is specified by the use of Internet Protocol security (IPsec). However, IPsec is optional for IPv4 implementations. Because an application cannot rely on IPsec being present to secure traffic, an application might resort to other security standards or a proprietary security scheme. The need for built-in security is even more important today, when we face an increasingly hostile environment on the Internet.

• Prioritized delivery Prioritized packet delivery, such as special handling parameters for low delay and low variance in delay for voice or video traffic, is possible with IPv4. However, it relies on a new interpretation of the IPv4 Type Of Service (TOS) field, which is not supported for all the devices on the network. Additionally, identification of the packet flow must be done using an upper layer protocol identifier such as a TCP or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) port. This additional processing of the packet by intermediate routers makes forwarding less efficient.

• Mobility Mobility is a new requirement for Internet-connected devices, in which a node can change its address as it changes its physical attachment to the Internet and still maintain existing connections. Although there is a specification for IPv4 mobility, due to a lack of infrastructure, communications with an IPv4 mobile node are inefficient.

Answer 4

The advantages of the internet protocol are that you can get muches of informations fast and easily.

Answer 5

There are a few advantages of IPV6 over IPV4. The main advantage is the larger address space of IPV6. IPV6 also reduces overhead for certain features.