It means its corporate customers will be able to integrate to IPv6, which has advantages over the current IPv4 other than just new internet addresses. IPv6 will enable new IP applications, improved network configuration, security, scalability, mobility, and better administration and manageability, said Verizon Business, which is a unit of Verizon.

These advantages are key, and our customers should consider each one separately as they create their IPv6 deployment strategies, said Mike Marcellin, VP of product marketing for Verizon Business.

Among those new IP applications are so-called smart devices, such as internet-connected refrigerators and washing machines.

IPv4, which was developed more than 30 years ago, was designed for communication among research laboratories, universities and government labs. As such, it was meant to accommodate only about 4 billion potential internet addresses. Because more devices are connecting to the internet, including billions of smart phones and RFID transponders, the IPv4 address space will eventually be used up.

John Curran, chairman of the American Registry for Internet Numbers, recently told Computer Business Review that the IPv4 address pool is about 81% depleted and the remaining addresses are being used up fast. He said there was beginning to be a consensus among industry watchers that IPv4 could become an issue as early as 2010.

The good news is once the world moves to IPv6, there will be an abundant of internet addresses so that another upgrade would never be necessary, according to Curran.

Verizon Business’ new network will be a dual-stack, which means it will enable both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols on a multi protocol label switching (MPLS) network core, said Daniel Awduche, a company fellow who manages its global internet engineering organization. He said customer migration from IPv6 would be systematic. We do not view this as an overnight event, but rather a process that will occur over a period of time, Awduche said.

Verizon Business, which began its first phase of deploying IPv6 on the public IP network in 2004, will complete the North America region in 2008 and move into the Asia-Pacific and European regions from late 2008 to 2009.

The company said it had also deployed IPv6 throughout its network access points, or peering facilities, where internet service providers exchange traffic.

The federal government has ordered its agencies to become IPv6-capable by June of 2008.