What is the primary purpose of IPv4 exhaustion and how does IPv6 address it?

• A. IPv4 has limited address space leading to shortages; IPv6 provides a vastly larger space (128-bit addresses) to support growth.
• B. IPv6 reduces address space
• C. IPv4 uses 64-bit addressing
• D. IPv4 is faster; IPv6 slower

Answer: (A)

IPv4 exhaustion happens because the 32-bit address space can provide only about 4.3 billion unique addresses, which isn’t enough for all devices, subnets, and services connected globally. The real fix is to vastly expand the available address space. IPv6 does this by using 128-bit addresses, offering about 3.4×10^38 unique addresses. That enormous space supports global uniqueness for devices, easier automatic configuration, and more scalable routing through hierarchical addressing. So the primary purpose is to enable continued growth of the Internet by eliminating the limitations of IPv4’s address space. The other options either misstate the size of IPv6’s address space or imply performance differences that aren’t the main issue.