U.S. shrugs off world's IP address shortage

As much of the world nears an Internet address crunch, North America stands as an island apart, threatening to fragment plans for the biggest overhaul of the Web in 30 years. Global momentum is growing for a new address system, known as IPv6, which promises to vastly expand the pool of unique numbers available for connecting PCs and other devices to the Net. The standard is widely seen as a necessary successor to the current IPv4 system, which some fear could run short of addresses in Asia and Europe within the next few years.

But few analysts expect the problem to affect North America and influential U.S. networks any time soon, thanks to unique conditions that will likely guarantee the region a steady supply of IPv4 addresses for years to come. Since fear of an address shortage is the single biggest argument in favor of a switch, the United States could stay on the sidelines as the rest of the world wrestles with the upgrade over the coming years, networking experts said.