The difficulties of adopting the next-generation Internet standard so far have outweighed its advantages, but one key part of the computing industry is showing signs of beginning the IPv6 transition in earnest: Internet service providers.

A total of 32 percent of ISPs offer IPv6 services to business customers today, according to a new European Commission-funded survey, said John Curran, chief executive of American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), one of the world's five nonprofit Internet registry organizations that collectively hand out Internet addresses and keep track of which numeric addresses are connected to which servers on the Internet.

That percentage, though, is increasing.

"Sixty percent intend to have services within a year. That's a huge step up," Curran said. "Within two years, it is 80 percent."

He's baffled what the remaining 20 percent of ISPs will do, given that the Internet is expected to run out of the current limited stock of IPv4 addresses in about that same time frame, making ISPs left behind the virtual equivalent of a home-building contractor with no empty lots left on the street. According to Internet service company Hurricane Electric, which monitors the IPv6 transition, there are about 203 million IPv4 addresses left, enough to last less than nine months.

Cnet has the details HERE!