US IPv4 Address Pool Reported to Be at Its Last Drop
Gabriel Roşu / 9 years ago
Well folks, the time has come to gradually transition from IPv4 towards IPv6. But don’t panic! Everyone was aware of the change and the limit is expected to be reached, as previously analysis show, sometime this summer. Will this affect your everyday user? Of course not, people will most probably not see any type of change at all (hopefully).
The guys in charge of handling the transition and making sure that everything works are the ISPs, who should have already started on getting things ready for the big change. So why do we need to make the change? Limited addresses, of course. Back in 1981 when the first IPv4 was made, it used only 32 bits to generate unique addresses. The latter number of bits is able to generate 4.3 billion unique addresses and back then people couldn’t have imagined that so many devices will be connected to the Internet is such a short amount of time.
However, further analysis pointed out the issue and so IPv6 was introduced in 1999, a 128-bit upgraded version of the IPv4 protocol, able to generate 340 trillion trillion trillion unique addresses. Now the thing is, if we are to run out of addresses for this protocol, it means that we either have the worst tech addiction or we are in an era where there are more androids running around than people.
Thank you Sci-Tech Today for providing us with this information
