Net Address Overhaul Begins
By Christopher Nickson
February 04, 2008
A new format called IP version 6 steps in, as under the old format IP addresses would have been exhausted by 2011.
We were down to just 14% of unallocated IP address. That might not sound too worrying, but it was making the folks at Icann, the body responsible for giving out Net addresses, sweat a bit. With 4,294, 967,296 already gone, the pool of available addresses was likely to be exhausted by 2011.
That’s why they began introducing IPv6 to replace the old IPv4 yesterday. To be fair, it wasn’t a grand entrance, according to the BBC. Instead, just a few addresses using IPv6 were added to the root servers for the Net.
But the difference will be huge, since it will give a huge new supply of addresses.
Paul Twomey, president of Icaan, said,
"There's pressure for people to make the conversion to IPv6. We're pushing this as a major issue."
A number of major companies already use IPv6, and that will grow as v4 addresses run out. However, you won’t notice any immediate effect at home, and you’ll still be able to find sites without any problem. Eventually, however, it’s probably the home routers will need to be upgraded or replaced as the new addresses become more prevalent.