Internet addresses to void in less than a year
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 27 July 2010, 20:11 IST   |    3 Comments
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Bangalore: According to the experts, the world will run out of internet addresses in less than a year and inaction by internet providers could lead to broken applications and more expensive net connections. IPv4, the protocol that supports Internet, provides only about 4 billion IP addresses which is the unique sequence of numbers assigned to each computer, website or other internet-connected device. Due to the explosion in the number of people, devices and web services on the internet, there are only about 232 million IP addresses are left and this allocation is set to be exhausted in about 240 days. "When the IPv4 protocol was developed 30 years ago, it seemed to be a reasonable attempt at providing enough addresses, bearing in mind that at that point personal computers didn't really exist. The idea that mobile phones might want an IP address hadn't occurred to anybody because mobile phones hadn't been invented and the idea that air conditioners and refrigerators might want them was utterly ludicrous," said John Lindsay, carrier relations manager at internet service provider (ISP) Internode, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Internet experts derived a solution to the problem several years ago, which involves moving to a new protocol, IPv6, that provides trillions of addresses for every person on the planet. But most of the internet industry - including ISPs and websites - have been reluctant to make the necessary investments to move to IPv6. In the meantime ISPs may force multiple customers to share IP addresses, which may lead to common applications, such as Gmail and iTunes ceasing to work.

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