Will the internet run out of room next year?

16. Nov, 2009

You may have heard the reports on news channels lately, but what does it all mean?

It means just what it says. There will be no more room for anything that connects to the internet and you will feel the pinch. Internet speeds will decrease and new connections and services will be expensive or impossible to obtain. When the internet was initially created, it was thought that the IP (Internet Protocol) v4 would provide enough IP addresses to last forever. In other words, you could make 4 billion of different combinations of that addressing scheme. But, that was thought of when there were only 500 computers connected to the internet. Now, less than 30 years later, we are running out of combinations. In fact, we may be down to our last hundred thousand. So, how we you solve it?

It’s a good thing Mac and Windows already thought of this. IP v6 was agreed upon more than a decade ago. This IP scheme will provide billions upon billions of addresses for new devices. Even better, it will improve internet phone and video calls and possibly even help to prevent email spam among many more advantages. Transitioning to the system will be relatively straight forward, but it requires the purchase of new network equipment. It’s a good thing Windows and Mac already have this functionality built in. You can read more about the IPv6 addressing scheme here.

As usual, internet hackers, scammers, etc. will take advantage of this situation and try to use scare tactics to get you to download something or click to a malicious site. DON”T. You don’t need to do a thing, besides sit back and let the professionals take care of it.