ACCORDING TO the Number Resource Organisation (NRO) almost ninety per cent of IPv4 Internet addresses are taken.
Before you stock up on shotguns and tinned food and head into your basement in panic, you should remember that there is the bright and shiny IPv6 waiting to be adopted. The
NRO said that there are just four years left until the tired old IPv4 address space runs out and urged more organisations to adopt the new one now.
"This is a key milestone in the growth and development of the global Internet," said Axel Pawlik, chairman of the NRO. "With less than 10 percent of the entire IPv4 address range still available for allocation to RIRs, it is vital that the Internet community take considered and determined action to ensure the global adoption of IPv6. The limited IPv4 addresses will not allow us enough resources to achieve the ambitions we all hold for global Internet access. The deployment of IPv6 is a key infrastructure development that will enable the network to support the billions of people and devices that will connect in the coming years."
While IPv4 can handle only a few billion addresses, its bigger brother can take on trillions. This is only likely to become more important as people surround themselves with gadgets and gewgaws, according to the group, which is responsible for the overseeing the allocation of all Internet number resources. Unfortunately, despite IPv6 having been around for a couple of years now, few organisations have rushed to adopt it.
Sensing perhaps that the panic was dying down again, Raul Echeberria, secretary of the NRO, then chimed in to add, "Many decision makers don't realise how many devices require IP addresses - mobile phones, laptops, servers, routers, the list goes on. The number of available IPv4 addresses is shrinking rapidly, and if the global Internet community fails to recognise this, it will face grave consequences in the very near future."
So you have been warned. Again.
