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Joomla 1.6 is supposed to be released this year, although the developers avoid setting the firm date, since there is still some work to be done. Perhaps you can contribute as well? You can help in translating part of documentation or tutorial, or, if you are familiar with PHP, you can find and fix bugs. 

As far as hosting goes, Joomla 1.6 will require significant upgrade in server software.

Make sure that your hosting provider meets these minimum requirements:

• PHP 5.2 +
• MySQL 5.0.4 +
• Apache 1.3 (with mod_mysql, mod_xml, mod_zlib and mod_rewrite)

The upgrade procedure from Joomla 1.5 to 1.6 is not known at this time. It's possible it will be easier than from 1.0 to 1.5, which required the migration script. But there are a few factors one needs to keep in mind for future:

• there will be no legacy mode - so old extensions will not run. Make sure the extensions you use have current 1.5 version and that the developer is planning to release a version for Joomla 1.6
• there will be small changes in URLs, what may have an impact on SEO of your website
• new ACL feature which everyone is waiting for - you will be able to assign certain permissions to users and groups. This is very positive development, but will require a little time to get used to it.

As far as we checked, all providers from our recommended list fulfill the minimum requirements for Joomla 1.6. Check them out, if you are looking for a reliable Joomla hosting.

Some of them give you  the choice of version when creating a MySQL database - be sure to choose MySQL 5, not MySQL 4.