What issue does IPv6 primarily aim to address compared to IPv4?

IPv6 primarily addresses the limitation of address space associated with IPv4, which utilizes 32-bit addresses. This limitation results in a finite number of unique IP addresses, approximately 4.3 billion, which is insufficient to accommodate the rapidly growing number of devices connected to the internet. As more devices come online, such as smartphones, laptops, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the demand for IP addresses has significantly increased.

IPv6 employs 128-bit addresses, allowing for a vastly larger address pool of approximately 340 undecillion unique addresses (3.4 x 10^38). This expanded address space ensures that there are enough unique addresses for the foreseeable future, thereby facilitating the growth of the internet and enabling every device to have its unique identifier.

While faster packet transmission, data integrity checks, and routing complexity are important aspects of network performance and security, they are not the primary focus of the transition from IPv4 to IPv6. The introduction of IPv6 is predominantly motivated by the need to resolve the urgent issue of address exhaustion that IPv4 faces.