Ipv4 to Ipv6 Discussion

[Hyder]

scientists such as Geoff Huston have estimated IPv4 will run out of addresses around 2012 mark which is not far off.....in this event a contingency plan needs to be deployed to assist with the IPv4 exhaustion. yes NAT helps conserve IPv4 addresses but with the use of IPv6, NAT is no longer needed, .
IPv4 supports up to 4.5billion addresses.
IPv6 i think supports something ridiculous like 34 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
(340 undecillion) addresses. which is more numbers than the star in our solar system.
it seems to be a step in history where we are converting to IPv6.
Google recently launched an IPv6 version of their homepage
ipv6.google.com
Also the RIR's such as Apnic, RIPE etc now sell IPv6 address space and have done for quite a while, they still allocate IPv4 but from Feb2009 they are making IPv4 addresses obsolete and will only sell IPv6.
the white house announced that all federal agencies must convert to IPv6 by june 2008.
Also when Ipv4 first came out the majority of those addresses were allocated to the US , not for racism or power but because the internet first was a military project in a university and most growth of the internet was in north America at the time. Because of this other continents such as Asia are now experiencing conflicting ip addresses.
Ive come to the conclusion that IPv6 is inevitable , not because it has better features and performance, but because there is an element of IPv4 exhaustion. And at the moment it seems to be the 'trend' in upgrading to IPv6 addresses. It is a mark in Internet history though where Ipv4 has nearly reached the end of its life and there is the birth of Ipv6.