Leading Web content providers -- including Google, Yahoo, Netflix, and Microsoft -- are conducting early-stage conversations about creating a shared list of customers who can access their Web sites via IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol.

The most popular Web sites are under increasing pressure to add support for IPv6, a long-anticipated upgrade to IPv4, the Internet's main communications protocol.

Corporations and government agencies must IPv6-enable their public-facing Web sites in the next 24 months or risk upsetting a growing number of visitors with lower-grade connectivity.

Google plans to upgrade its YouTube video streaming Web site to provide support for IPv6, a long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol.

Hurricane Electric, a Fremont, Calif., ISP, will announce on Monday that its IPv6 network has doubled in size in less than a year -- a sign of how rapidly IPv6 traffic is increasing across the Internet.

U.S. ISPs are requesting more IPv6 addresses and fewer IPv4 addresses than ever before -- a sign that carriers are investing in the future amidst one of the deepest recessions in modern history.

Been meaning to catch up on IPv6, the next generation Internet Protocol? We've backtracked and collected a handful of stories that will get you up to speed well before IPv4 addresses run out.

The U.S. government has reportedly struck a compromise between network vendors and independent test labs with its plan to launch a comprehensive product testing program for IPv6, the next-generation Internet Protocol.

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory in July conducted the first trial of the U.S. federal government's new IPv6 test suite on equipment from 10 leading network vendors, including Cisco, Juniper, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Sun.

IPv6 — the next-generation Internet protocol — isn't keeping too many U.S. CIOs and network managers up worrying at night. But perhaps it should.