Is This IPOCALYPSE?

Jack Dikian

January 2011

It seems that the world will soon run out of a man-made resource called an “IP Address” the unique stuff that makes the Internet work. No doubt the press will declare the end of the Internet, and that all communications will soon cease – a true IPOCALYPSE.

Every device on the Internet has a unique identifying number, called an IP Address. A typical IP address looks like this looks something like this: 216.27.61.137

And the same in binary (machine representation) is: 11011000 00011011 00111101 10001001

As we can see there are thirty two (32) zeros and ones that make up the IP address, a 32-bit number, a standard called IPv4 – and that’s the rub. The total possible address combinations this system provides is 4,294,967,296 unique values – or almost 4.3 Billion addresses, a number, back in 1977 when the Internet “experiment” was conceived was regarded to be adequate.

The problem

Because each computer or device on earth needs an IP address to help it connect to the internet and the existing standard (IPv4), only allows for about 4.3 billion unique addresses – there isn’t enough to give one to each person alive on earth today. Strictly speaking, this isn’t quiet true as ISPs can also deploy Network Address Translation, or NAT allowing them to share IP addresses, avoiding providing a new address to each customer – although this has its own limitations and disadvantages.

Dr Vint Cerf, considered one of the "fathers" of the Internet, told a Linux conference in Brisbane this week he was embarrassed about the situation. "I was the guy who decided 32 bits was enough for the Internet experiment," he said.

"My only defence is that choice was made in 1977. I thought it was an experiment. The problem is the experiment didn't end, and so here we are."

The solution

Dr Cerf says the Internet industry must start working hard to get IPv6 up and running. "The time for just talking about it is over, we just have to get busy and implement it and demonstrate it," he said.

A new numbering model, IPv6, has existed since the mid-1990s, but not all ISPs have begun experimenting with the hardware and software needed to use it. The new schema will be capable of providing approximately four billion times more addresses than the entire IPv4 Internet – however for this to work, communication devices will need to be upgraded.

As an aside, the Federal Government rolls out the NBN, one of the necessary side-effects of that is that the new hardware (routers) will already be compatible with IPv6 standard.

So, onwards and upwards towards a new world...