IPv5 wasn't a general purpose Internet Protocol like IPv4 or IPv6, and was never ratified as such, but it would give birth to the first VOIP hardware.
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(Image credit: Future) The Internet as we know it was born through a series of unexpected developments in networking technology. So it isn’t very surprising that, along its crooked growth trajectory, there were several rather fruitless branches. One such branch was the Internet Stream Protocol (ST) , which is also sometimes referred to as IPv5, as tech tidbits Twitterer Laurie Wired recently highlighted. However, the industry has skipped IPv5, moving directly from IPv4 to IPv6, leaving it as a forgotten protocol.
Everyone’s heard of IPv4 and IPv6.I bet you don’t know about IPv5.Designed in the late 70s, it was an experimental protocol by MIT’s Lincoln Labs for real-time streaming.Basically, Zoom before Zoom existed…but for defense: pic.twitter.com/qSbK4LZE1U November 19, 2025
IPv4 was established as the first version of the Internet Protocol back in 1982/83. It used 32-bit addressing to provide about 4.3 billion unique IP addresses, but developers quickly realized that the explosive growth of the Internet meant the humongous number would be exhausted in due course.
IPv6 would ride in, like a knight on a white charger, in 1989 (adoption grew post 2000) with 128-bit addressing to provide approximately 340 undecillion addresses, which should be enough for anyone. It also introduced IPsec security , simpler headers, and better mobile device support. Nevertheless, for reasons such as easier configuration, reduced complexity, legacy support, and human readability, the dwindling IPv4 pool has remained a preferred choice.
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Key considerations
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/ipv5-and-the-internet-stream-protocol-a-data-streaming-experiment-rendered-unnecessary-by-broadband#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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