Legit Reviews

o the list of dwindling worldwide resources add Internet addresses. According to experts, the nearly 4.5 billion current addresses aren't enough, only six percent of available addresses are left, and the Internet will run out of addresses by sometime late next year.

Three main factors are behind the upcoming shortage. One is the explosion in web access from multiple devices for each user, primarily in developed countries. Each of those smartphones, laptops, tablets, desktops and other devices that access the web require a different IP, or Internet protocol, address. And the demand for device addresses is increasing rapidly, with TVs, game consoles, even automobiles offering web-browsing capability.

Trillions of Addresses for Each Person

A second factor is a rapidly growing user base in developing countries, such as Brazil, India or China. Many of users there access the web through mobile devices, which means the device-per-user ratio in those countries is also likely to increase rapidly.

And, third, the Internet is becoming the communications network Relevant Products/Services for non-user-based equipment, such as smart electricity grids, sensors, RFIDs and smart houses.

But all is not lost. The current Net uses Internet protocol version four (IPv4), which dates back to 1980 and a time when 4.5 billion addresses seemed like a lot. A newer technology, IPv6, utilizes 128-bit addresses, instead of IPv4's 32-bit, and IPv6 proponents say the new technology could offer -- if needed -- a vast number of addresses that should keep humanity happy until the sun burns out.

Some experts say IPv6 could provide four billion addresses for each person on Earth. But Dave Evans, Cisco's chief technologist for its Internet business solutions group, has said the actual number is closer to "50 thousand trillion trillion addresses per person."

In addition to zillions of new addresses, IPv6 brings other improvements, including in routing, network auto-configuration, and better handling of 3G mobile networks.

'Essential' To Internet's Health

Running out of addresses could have a significant economic impact. In May, an IPv6 summit met in Ireland and issued a warning about the consequences. Unless IPv6 is implemented, a task force said, "new startup businesses wishing to offer services on the Internet will find it very difficult or prohibitively expensive to secure globally route-able addresses for new services such as e-commerce web sites." It added that valid IP addresses could even be traded on a black market.

Some government agencies and businesses in Europe and Asia have started to use IPv6, but currently successful usage requires running IPv4 and IPv6 concurrently.

Verizon, Comcast and some other large telecommunications companies have announced IPv6 trials, and what is being called the Internet of Things -- sensors, power grids, RFIDs -- is increasingly using IPv6 instead of IPv4.

Google has said that IPv6 "is essential to the continued health and openness of the Internet," adding that IPv6 allows all devices on a network to talk to each other directly. The search giant has begun offering its main search service over IPv6. In June, Google held an IPv6 Implementors Conference, during which companies such as Facebook said they would begin using IPv6 on some basis.

Until IPv6 is fully implemented, there are stopgaps, such as network address translation (NAT), which reduces the number of unique IP addresses needed by mapping multiple addresses to a single one. But Google, among others, has argued that this approach complicates the Internet and is, at best, only a temporary fix.