Cox Communications, a broadband communications and entertainment company, providing advanced digital video, Internet, telephone and wireless services over its own nationwide IP network, announced it is prepared to support Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), the next generation of Internet addressing.

“By migrating to IPv6, Cox (News - Alert) is future-proofing its network, systems and products,” said Jason Weil, principal architect of Cox Communications, in a statement. “As a digital voice, video, Internet and commercial service provider, we are committed to a seamless transition, so our customers experience the same service in the future that they enjoy today.”

The company is conducting trials with Cox Business (News - Alert). The trials will be extended to its residential product line in the future, according to company officials.

The rapid growth of online devices and applications has resulted in shortage of IP addresses. IPv4 is expected to reach its limit in 2012, when all Internet customers must begin slowly migrating their devices and content to IPv6.

IPv6 has a robust address space and consists of 128 bits as compared to 32 bits in IPv4. IPv6 can produce approximately 340 undecillion IPv6 addresses versus the 4.2 billion available through IPv4.

The dual dual-stack IPv6 deployment from Cox allows customers to continue leveraging their current IPv4 capability while incrementally adding the IPv6 support required for the next generation of network devices and applications.

Cox's core network is fully IPv6 compliant and the company is transitioning the network edge and support infrastructure to meet customer demand, according to company officials.

Cox Business currently serves nearly 250,000 small and regional businesses, offering voice, data and video services. Cox is currently the seventh largest voice service provider in the U.S. and supports more than 730,000 business phone lines, company sources said.

Vertical Systems Group recently recognized Cox Business as the fourth largest provider of business Ethernet services in the U.S. based on customer ports.

The company was also ranked highest among small/midsize business data service providers in J.D. Power and Associates 2010 U.S. Major Provider Business Telecommunications Study.