IT: Internet to run out of Internet addresses in a year

The Internet will run out of Internet addresses in about 1 year's time, told John Curran, president and CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN). After that it will be impossible to register new projects with assigned Internet Protocol addresses. For ordinary users it is unlikely to pose any serious complications, however Internet providers are going to face serious problems.

Currently the Web largely uses IPv4, Internet Protocol version 4. John Curran told that of the approximately 4 billion IPv4 addresses available, all but 6% have already been allocated. Thus he expects the final 6% to be allocated over the coming 10 – 12 months.  He considers that transition to IPv6, the next generation Internet Protocol, which supports a vastly larger number of unique addresses, will be a perfect solution.

However transition to IPv6 should be performed not by separate organizations and segments, but by countries and continents. He reckons that telecommunication regulators of countries may even oblige providers to transit to IPv6, threatening the “violators” to revoke a license.

"IPv6 deployment — it is what we are going to face. However it is necessary to transit to this platform as soon as possible", - he highlighted.

By the way, a month ago TCP/IP developer Vint Cerf also appealed to the world community to implement IPv6 without delay, explaining that Internet “freeze” may present great problems to the world economy.