Describe why IP addresses for devices connected to the Internet are due to run out shortly and propose what possible solutions have been put forward to address this massive ‘time-bomb’
Every device connected to a computer network is assigned a unique IP (Internet Protocol) address to allow it to communicate with other hosts on the network. IP version 4 uses 32-bit addresses, allowing for a maximum of 4,294,967,296 possible addresses. IPv4 addresses are are ususally represented in a dotted decimal format (eg. 147.135.16.1) with each octet of the address being a number from 0 to 255.
However there is a shortage of available IPv4 addresses, with several factors threatening the Internet with address exhaustion including:
Mobile phones have become potential Internet hosts, meaning that every phone on the planet has an IP address, causing a reduction in the number of available addresses.
Always-on connections, such as broadband connections remain constanly active meaning that it always requires a persistant IPv4 address.
The growing number of Internet users across the world is taking up IP addresses.
While a number of measures have been put forward to help solve the IPv4 address exhaustion problem, the introduction of new IPv6 addresses is considered to be the long-term solution. Instead of using the current 32-bit address, IPv6 will use 128-bit addresses providing about 50 octillion addresses.
References
IP addresses - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Address
IPv4 address exhaustion - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_address_exhaustion
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