No 'IPocalypse' for internet addresses

THE BODY responsible for managing addresses on the internet handed out the last batch of four billion internet address at a ceremony in Miami yesterday saying “there are no more”.

The non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) handed out the last 83.9 million available internet protocol (IP) addresses, and urged technology and telecoms companies to accelerate their investment in a new system that allows for trillions of internet addresses to support the massive growth in smartphones, tablets and even domestic appliances which connect to the internet.

“After years of rapid internet expansion, the pool of available unallocated addresses for IPv4, the original internet protocol addressing system, is completely depleted,” the corporation said in a statement.

Internet companies will now have to accelerate investment in a new system, IPv6, which, according to Icann, allows for “a billion-trillion” times more addresses than IPv4. Although unseen by web users, machines translate web addresses such as irishtimes.com into a unique set of numbers such as 195.7.33.37 which is its IPv4 address. An IPv6 address would be of the form 2001:0DB8::/feed:b766 but the change to the more complex format should be invisible to users.

Despite running out of addresses, Icann and other bodies represented in Miami were keen to point out there is no impending “IPocalypse”.

“No one was caught off-guard by this. The internet technical community has been planning for IPv4 depletion for some time,” said Rod Beckstrom, Icann’s chief executive. “But it means the adoption of IPv6 is now of paramount importance, since it will allow the internet to continue its amazing growth and foster the global innovation we’ve all come to expect.”

Although internet service providers will be able to use technical workarounds to mitigate the worst impact of the lack of new addresses, they will have to start managing a transition to IPv6.