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Of the 4.3 billion Internet addresses available with the current technologies, about 95% are gone.
The Number Resource Organization (NRO) stated the addresses available with IPv4 technology will be used up by early 2011. According to the current usage rates, the last five blocks of IPv4 addresses will be distributed to nonprofit companies — called Regional Internet Registries – that administer and register the IP address space in early 2011.
Currently, the text-based Internet addresses are the front for the numeric addresses that do the real behind-the-scenes work of the Internet. With Internet Protocol version 4 or IPv4, the numeric addresses are running out. The leaders of the NRO and others have suggested that Internet stakeholders should work towards adaptation of Internet Protocol version 6 or IPv6 soon.
One IPv4 numeric address can be shared with multiple computers through network address administration. But even this technology has its limits which increases the number of IPv4 addresses being used. The next generation Internet protocol IPv6 will expand the frontier and get rid of the limitations of the IPv4 system.
The Regional Internet Registries will allocate over 2000 IPv6 address blocks in 2010 which shows some interest in moving to the new technology.
Some companies such as Comcast, Google, and Facebook are already moving towards an adoption of IPv6 but smaller companies have not started the process. There is concern that the adaptation to IPv6 is not moving fast enough which might lead to increased Internet costs and instability of the worldwide Internet network as companies rush to try to adapt IPv6 at the last minute. Companies that do not move to IPv6 technology and remain with IPv4 technology will not be able to expand into the IPv6 realm; however, IPv4 will continue to work.
