Start licking stamps, the Internet is used up!

Truthfully, my title is a bit misleading and is only intended for humour. But if someone told you that all the IP addresses in the world had been used up, would you worry? This is the story that I heard in my car on my way home from classes, and when I heard about it my first thought was, that can't be good. Like the constant spikes in gasoline prices, my next thought was that someone could make a killing (financially) off of a problem like this.

The main story I heard on the radio was taken from content I read on this CBC news story.

It's fairly easy to describe the problem using an analogy were all familiar with; the telephone. Many cities and communities have had to adapt their telephone systems over the years because there was a limited number of 10-digit combinations that can be issued. I recall a time from my youth when our family only needed the last four digits to make a local call.

Damn I'm old.

I soon learned that people far more educated than me were on top of this recent problem and quickly developing IPv6, the replacement for IPv4. IPv6 is pretty amazing as its developers have thought big. The new limit for the IPv6 binary code will allow for a, here's a new word for you, an undecillion of Internet addresses. (previous IPv4 address space only allowed for a paltry 4.3 billion unique IP addresses)

With all the technological devices we own and for as many people that own tech devices (very often more than one) it was only a matter of time before these addresses would be used up; each device has its own distinct IP address in order for it to be recognized on the Internet. As emerging economies grow, their technological wants will likely be courted as well.

I'm a simple user of the Internet. I contribute little else to it other than this blog, but like everyone else, I see how invaluable it has become. One consulting group has went so far to make an estimate to how much the Internet economy is worth. With the amount of economic opportunity for anyone in this type of economy, it's easy to see why there's such a rush to get online with as many "toes in the pool" as possible.