In 2012, most providers will switch to IPv6

Analysts are confident that 2012 will mark the final transition to the new IPv6 Internet protocol.

Last year, the Internet Assigned Names and Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated the remaining free IPv4 address blocks.

In the spring of 2011, the Asia-Pacific region began forced migration to the IPv6 protocol.

Analysts at the Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures at the Australian Institute of Technology believe that the last free block of IPv4 addresses in Europe will run out at the end of July 2012.

In 2013, IPv4 space will be completely exhausted in North America, and in 2014 in Latin America and Africa.

However, not all providers have yet begun preparing for the transition to IPv6. As of October 1, 2011, less than 1% of all second-level domains in the .com, .net, and .org domain zones had IPv6-enabled web servers.

Experts believe that in 2012, many companies will support both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols simultaneously.