IPv6

Most of the Internet runs on IPv4. IANA dishes out blocks of IP addresses in /8s, and has 255 of them to allocate. Each /8 is around 16.5m addresses.

IANA now has unallocated only 7/255 blocks.

It is projected that IANA will hand out the final /8 in March 2011. IANA allocates them to regional internet registries and it is projected they will run out of addresses to allocate in December 2011. Just one year away.

After that date IPv4 addresses will still be available, but only through conservation measures, recycling space not used etc. There will be a real squeeze on.

This is why you need to start thinking about having your businesses and sites available on IPv6 also. There is a handy IPv6 site here.

Over the next decade or so the whole world will have to migrate to IPv6, and at some stage it will become the default numbering system. The good thing is there are 2^128 IPv6 addresses which is around 1 billion numbers per gram of earth.