The Impending Internet Address Shortage
The coming shortage of Internet Protocol addresses prompted the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) on Monday to call for a faster migration to the new Internet Protocol, IPv6.
The current version, IPv4, allows for more than 4 billion (2^32) Internet addresses. Only 19% of the IPv4 address space remains. Somewhere around 2012-13, the last Internet address bloc will be assigned and the Internet will be full, in a manner of speaking.
"We must prepare for IPv4's depletion, and ARIN's resolution to encourage that migration to IPv6 may be the impetus for more organizations to start the planning process," said John Curran, chairman of ARIN's Board of Trustees, in a statement.
IPv6 promises some 16 billion-billion possible addresses (2^128).
