IPv4 addresses to run out in about 4 years, IPv6 adoption still slow
It is no secret that IPv4 addresses are running out fast and that sooner or later we will have no choice but to go for IPv6. According to Arstechnica, with a rough estimate of about 200 million addresses reserved each year, crunch time will be with us in 4 years.
In the intermediate period there is two things that can be done. The first one -that is already implemented with success- is NAT which stands for Network Address Translation and does not allow a user to have their own IPv4 address but we will still be able to open new sites that will appear to users as usual.
The second of course is the transition to IPv6, which sooner or later we cannot avoid. The difficulty here is that both ends -server and receiver- must support IPv6, otherwise it does not work. Very annoying… This means that in the intermediate period there will be two parallel streams, that of IPv4 till it is completely faced out, plus that of IPv6.
The good news? There is three of those:
- The situation with IPv4 is not as critical as many people would want us to believe, however the transition to IPv6 will entail some coordination.
- IPv6 will offer so many addressing permutations that humanity will need not worry for Internet addressing problems for many many years.
- IPv6 has been designed from scratch to accommodate mobile device addressing and 3G or later mobile protocols. So as computing becomes increasingly mobile there will be additional benefits to move to IPv6 as soon as possible.
Link: Arstechnica
