... 23.101.68
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COUNTDOWN TO IPV6
INFINITE INTERNET? NOT YET.
The current system of IP addresses has limitations that threaten the growth of the Internet. Fortunately,
the information superhighway is about to get a bunch more lanes. BY ADAM BERENSTAIN
It’s a fact of life with computers—sooner or later, you’ve gotta upgrade
your gear. That goes for the internet too. The web we know and love is
about to get a lot bigger, one network at a time.
Ready or not, a big change is coming to the web. In less than two
years, the world will run out of IP addresses, the unique numbers
that identify websites and all devices that connect to the internet.
These addresses use the current version of the Internet Protocol,
IPv4, which has provided standards for online networking since
the 1970s. That’s a long time, and perhaps unsurprisingly, IPv4’s
limitations now threaten the growth of the internet.
The problem is that IPv4 can only generate four
billion different addresses. Back in the day, that
seemed like plenty. But thanks to the internet’s
explosive popularity, we’re now down to 9% of the
remaining IPv4 address pool. As time runs short,
the world’s five Regional Internet Registries (RIR)
have stepped up efforts to get the word out. Since
the 1990s, these nonprofit, nongovernmental
agencies have overseen the distribution of IP
addresses to governments, universities, and businesses throughout the
world. Our RIR in North America is ARIN, the American Registry for
Internet Numbers.
“It’s not quite a crisis,” says ARIN president John Curran. “Nearly
twenty years ago, the Internet Engineering Task Force, which was
responsible for IPv4, realized we were going to run out of addresses.
What they came up with was what we call IPv6 today.”
IPv6 is the next version of the Internet Protocol, and it can generate
340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses. That’s a quantum leap over
IPv4 and will make possible a nearly infinite internet. “The comparison
I’ve heard made is that if all IPv4 addresses were packed into a golf
ball, the ball made with IPv6 addresses would be the size of the sun,”
explains Curran.
In less than
two years,
the world will
run out of IP
addresses.
76.01.960.33
