Running out of numbers

The internet is moving to mobile very fast indeed and that's going to mean billions of new IP addresses

9 October, 2009

By Piers Letcher

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Within the next two years we're going to run out of numbers - or to be more accurate, IPv4 addresses. That's the message Adiel Akplogan, Chairman of the Number Resource Organization (NRO) - which dishes out blocks of available IP addresses - wants us all to understand, before it's too late.

"We're expecting to allocate the last blocks of IPv4 addresses by the end of 2011," says Akplogan. "After that, if people haven't started migrating to IPv6 in a big way, we're going to have serious problems with growing the internet." IPv4 limits the possible number of addresses to some four billion (which is less than the number of active SIM cards), whereas IPv6 offers virtually unlimited address space.

How much, exactly? 2 to the power of 128, to be precise. "That's a very, very big number," says Akplogan. "If you imagine IPv4 as a 4cm square, then IPv6 is the size of the solar system." And we're going to need it.

"The internet is moving to mobile very fast indeed and that's going to mean billions of new IP addresses," says Akplogan. "And that's just the start. The internet of things, where we have vast volumes of M2M data and devices, will require literally trillions of new addresses. And it just can,t happen without IPv6."

IPv6 promises to deliver on the original premise - and promise - of the internet: true, unlimited, point-to-point communication. And Akplogan assures would-be migrators that the process isn't difficult or expensive: "The only real cost is training," he says, "and most organizations already have this as an existing outlay." So it's time to get moving, and make the migration - before it,s too late.