Web Address System Faces Changes; We Will Run Out of IPv4 Domains by 2011
Written on February 5, 2008 – 12:38 pm | by admin
Someone with a lot of spare time and a calculator determined the exact amount of time until we run out of web domains as we know them. By the year 2011, there will simply not be any room on the internet for any more websites the way we know them. Technologically speaking, every web address, or URL, has to be translated by a master server into an IPv4 address, which is a long string of numbers, much like many license plates on automobiles. Now that everyone is making their own website, we’re starting to run low on figurative license plates. By 2011, all possible combinations of numbers will be used up. Thankfully, *nix geeks have already thought up the solution: make a new IP version. IPv6 has room for a lot more addresses, and is already in the middle of being adopted to the master server of IP addresses. Eventually, routers and operating systems will need upgrading, because anything that can’t read IPv6 will not be able to visit IPv6 websites or view IPv6 content. However, the master geeks over at the master server have assured us all that such grandiloquent upgrades are a long way off.
Source: Neowin.net
Tags: ipv4, ipv6, web address