MOSCOW
(Reuters) – The world will soon run out of Internet addresses as the
number of devices connected to the Web explodes unless organizations
move to a new Internet Protocol version, the head of the body that
allocates IP addresses said.
Rod
Beckstrom, chief executive of ICANN, said only 8 or 9 percent of ipv4
addresses were left, and companies needed to switch to the new standard
of ipv6 as quickly as possible.
“We
are running out,” he told Reuters in an interview. “That move really
needs to be made, we’re seeing this scarce resource run down.”
Ipv4,
used ever since the Internet became public in the 1980s, was created
with space for only a few billion addresses, whereas ipv6 has trillions.
A
multitude of gadgets including cameras, music players and video-game
consoles are joining computers and mobile phones in being connected to
the Web, and each needs its own IP address.
Hans
Vestberg, the chief executive of telecoms equipment maker Ericsson,
predicted earlier this year there would be 50 billion connected devices
by 2020.
Beckstrom
said: “It’s a big management task and network operations task… but
it’s going to have to happen because we humans are inventing so many
devices that use the Internet now.”
Article in the Wall Street Journal
SOURCE: Reuters
