The current protocol for IP addresses, IPv4, is running out of space. IPv6 is due to be introduced soon. This will provide billions of addresses. Is your provider ready?

I'm not certain of the state of play with Virgin Media. I don't think there has been any announcements yet. It seems a problem could exist with some home routers too. However, there are ways of carrying IPv6 traffic over IPv4 networks. These ways being known as 'tunnelling' and 'encapsulation'. Perhaps this will be the way of things, at least to start with.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/050610-ipv6-tunnel-basics.html?page=1

I'm fairly sure that come the day of the IPv4 addresses running out, we will still be able to use the Internet as usual.

I'd heard about the router problems as well. I know Sky isn't yet set up to accept it. It'll take some time for the whole industry to switch over and I think the two will run side by side for a while. It may cause a few problems though accessing the very large web sites that switch over to just IPv6