However, despite the larges investments in time and money these major companies are making for the World IPv6 Day trial, there is nothing small businesses need to worry about Wednesday. In fact, unless you are hosting your own Web servers, a small business has nothing to do to prepare for the when IPv4 addresses are expected to be depleted next year, either.

Already, recently produced support IPv6. Windows XP, Vista, 7, and upcoming , as well as major Linux distributions including Red Hat and Ubuntu, are IPv6-ready. All ISPs eventually will eventually have to support IPv6 addresses as well.

But even if your network equipment or OS does not support IPv6, you will still not notice anything June 8 or in the future. Small businesses can also continue using IPv4 addresses indefinitely since it will not be in the interest of a Website owner to lock anyone out who continues to use an IPv4 connection. In fact, since IPv6 addresses are incompatible with IPv4 addresses, and vice-versa, it will be necessary to support IPv4 until there are no users left that use the protocol.

In my case, my ISP provider is Vodafone subsidiary SFR, a France-based provider that--besides its lousy service and obnoxious TV commercials--does not offer IPv6-only connectivity unless you sign up for its and invest in one of its newer routers.

Since I am not participating in SFR's IPv6 beta program, my connection fails the . However, the test also indicates that I will almost certainly not experience Internet-connection problems on June 8, since Websites, including those participating in the World IPv6 test, will still remain compatible with IPv4 addresses.