Are you ready for the big internet crunch?

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/27/internet.crunch.2012/index.html?hpt=T2

Within 18 months it is estimated that the number of new devices able to connect to the world wide web will plummet as we run out of "IP addresses" -- the unique codes that provide access to the internet for everything from PCs to smart phones.

"The internet as we know it will no longer be able to grow," Daniel Karrenberg, chief scientist at RIPE NCC, the organization that issues IP addresses in Europe, told CNN.

Four billion no doubt seemed a huge amount when the system was designed in the 1970s, but few then could have predicted how the internet would take off, and how many billions more connections would be needed.

However, there is a replacement, IPv6, which has trillions more addresses available and ready to go. The problem is that businesses are proving slow to adapt their technology to IPv6, leaving experts fearful that we might be heading for a crunch within 18 months.

[NeedleCast]

1. Meh, this is the Y2K of 2010

[Tansy_Gold]

2. And we were gonna run out of phone numbers, too n/t

[onenote]

3. if this happens how will those of us who get all our info on the net find out?

:beer:

[ProdigalJunkMail]

4. big pile of dog squeeze...

blaming the block of address allocations and the shortage thereof on business...most every company I work with uses Private IP addresses and NAT and use very few 'public' IP addresses...

and saying that businesses are not ready for IPv6 is asinine...all current hardware and OS since Win2K support v6 addressing...

blah...

sP

[SoCalNative]

5. What about all of those frequencies

freed up by the digital TV switchover?

[NeedleCast]

8. Totally different animal

[Egnever]

6. This is a silly article

There are many ways to get around the four billion number and quite a few are being used already.

This is fear mongering and has little basis in reality. The quote from the scientist is I am quite sure totally out of context and used only to make you afraid. I would bet you anything he was explaining the limitations of tcp/ip and they chose to just pull the explanation out of the full context of what he was explaining to a reporter that likely thinks the internets are a bunch of tubes.

[Speck Tater]

7. Bah! The Internet is just a passing fad anyway. nt

[WeDidIt]

9. Large multinational corporations are largely responsible for this

There's a reason why you use private address spaces for private devices. Too many large multinational corporations run their entire networks on Class A public address spaces they "own" rather than only using the public addresses for those devices that require a public address. You can NAT everything on your private network through a few public IP addresses even if you are a huge company.

[FarCenter]

11. Large companies run their networks on 10.0.0.0/8

Static IP addresses are never assigned, unless it is not possible to use dynamic addresses.

Even so, merging two large companys' intranets is a huge PITA.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

13. Large and Midsized...

there are a few class A's that are owned by companies...but most are gov't agencies...

http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/ipv4-address-space.xml


sP

[WeDidIt]

19. IBM, Level 3, AT&T, and most of the others on that list

run their public and private networks on those Class A ranges.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

20. right...there are 18 companies using class A address

that is less than 300M addresses out of 4 billion and they are NOT the reason that we are 'running out' of address space...in fact...businesses are NOT the reason we are 'running out'. And IPv6 can be rolled to in a matter of weeks...all hardware and software out there on corporate networks support it. But that will not be necessary for some time...

sP

[WeDidIt]

21. We were doomed to run out of address space from the instant the standard was set

If those 300M addresses were freed up, we'd have longer than 18 months.

And IPv6 should just be implemented as that would put the inevitable off for quite some time (yes, eventually even IPv6 will run out of space).

[ProdigalJunkMail]

22. I agree...I just hate all the 'doom and gloom' crap

and those 300M address could be well divided to provide billions more address via NAT. The only reason we will run out of IPv6 address space will be due to sloppy allocation. 2^128 is a boatload of addresses...3.4X10^38 address... dats a buncha addresses!

3,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (I don't even know what that number is)!

sP

[WeDidIt]

18. You have never worked for a large multi-national apparently.

IBM runs their public AND private network on 9.0.0.0/8.

They're not the only ones using a class A public address space, either. It pisses ARIN off, but they can't do shit about it because these companies were in on the ground floor of TCP/IP RFCs, so they get away with it.

BTW, AT&T is another company doing this, and they use multiple public class A spaces for both private and public networks because they manage those networks for companies like IBM.

[JBoy]

10. Running out of labels for the tubes!

[Arkana]

12. Meh. That's why we invented IPv6.

So this kind of thing wouldn't happen.

[Spike89]

14. yup, once we hit about a million users...er wait, what?

I actually was concerned when I read about the probable Internet crunch, but that was back in the early 90s and even then, the articles were being debunked almost as fast as hack journalists could file new ones. I think it might have been PC magazine and Bob Metcalfe (one of the inventors of ethernet) that kept predicting the crash of the internet because it simply couldn't handle millions of connections.

As with any rapid growth scenario, it is easy to forecast growth outstripping resources if you assume that the resources are finite/set. I was once told by a Seagate engineer that hard drives would never get past a couple GB capacity because we'd reach density limits before that. Serious people once thought CPU speeds were unlikely to exceed about 50 MHz because there would be too much "noise" on the motherboard.

[backscatter712]

15. Meh. Most devices have IPv6 support already.

There's also IP masquerading so multiple IPv4 devices can share one IP address visible to the rest of the Internet.

When businesses start having trouble getting IP addresses, they'll do some software upgrades, and the problem will be solved.

[Berry Cool]

16. Oh noes! Pretty soon nobody will go on the toobz anymore

because it'll be too crowded.

[MicaelS]

17. Oh please, this is just more technological FUD.....

What's next? Is the sky falling yet? :argh: