Smokey
02-05-2011, 02:00 PM
Thirty years after the first Internet addresses were created, the supply of addresses officially ran dry on Thursday. At a special ceremony in Miami on Thursday, the organization that oversees the global allocation of Internet addresses distributed the last batch of so-called IPv4 addresses.
Every computer, smartphone and Web server requires an IP address. And with the explosion of Web-connected gadgets, means that the world has now bumped up against the limit of roughly 4 billion IP addresses that are possible with the IPv4 standard introduced in 1981.
But don't panic. The solution which is already underway is IPv6, a new standard for Internet addresses that should provide a lot more room for growth: There are 340 undecillion IPv6 addresses available. That's 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses.
"If all the space of IPv4 were to be sized and compared to a golf ball, a similar-sized comparison for IPv6 would be the size of the sun," said John Curran, the chief executive officer of the American Registry for Internet Numbers.
For companies with websites, the transition to IPv6 means configuring their computer equipment to support the new standard rather than upgrading hardware. Laptops, smartphones and other Web-connected gadgets, as well as Web browsers, already support IPv6.
Every computer, smartphone and Web server requires an IP address. And with the explosion of Web-connected gadgets, means that the world has now bumped up against the limit of roughly 4 billion IP addresses that are possible with the IPv4 standard introduced in 1981.
But don't panic. The solution which is already underway is IPv6, a new standard for Internet addresses that should provide a lot more room for growth: There are 340 undecillion IPv6 addresses available. That's 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses.
"If all the space of IPv4 were to be sized and compared to a golf ball, a similar-sized comparison for IPv6 would be the size of the sun," said John Curran, the chief executive officer of the American Registry for Internet Numbers.
For companies with websites, the transition to IPv6 means configuring their computer equipment to support the new standard rather than upgrading hardware. Laptops, smartphones and other Web-connected gadgets, as well as Web browsers, already support IPv6.