Comcast representatives have stopped by our Comcast forum to note that the company is ramping up their adoption of IPv6, and will be moving foward with customer trials of IPv6 technology this year. According to the company, customers interested in signing up for the trials can sign up for them via the new Comcast IPv6 Information Center website. The trials should begin sometime during the second quarter of this year. Comcast has been working on IPv6 adoption for five years now, according to the company.

As many of you know, we're running out of IPv4 addresses, and the migration to IPv6 has been a sluggish and often dysfunctional affair. A recent report by the The Number Resource Organization indicates that 90% of IPv4 IP addresses have already been doled out, and companies need to get a move on (and they really mean it this time). IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses and can support around 4 billion IP addresses, while IPv6 supports 2 to the 128th power of IP addresses (read: lots).

"The trials we plan to conduct in 2010 will help us to identify and solve any areas of difficulty involved in the transition to IPv6, and to determine what approach will be the easiest and most seamless for our customers," says Jason Livingood, Executive Director of Internet Systems Engineering at Comcast and a frequent Broadband Reports poster. "Comcast will continue to share what we learn with the Internet community, particularly with the IETF, for the benefit of other users of the Internet."

At the moment, users who have DOCSIS 3.0 modems should be prepared for the migration, though Comcast says they'll have a complete list of hardware that will be compatible as the trials get closer.