"The stockpile of more than 4 billion Internet addresses has been emptied," Rod Beckstrom, head of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said at a news conference in Miami.
"It's completely empty. There is no more."
Beckstrom dismissed fears that the Internet universe would be devastated by an "IPcalipsis," and said the various regional registry offices will hand out the remaining addresses to support the shift to a much more fruitful format called "IPv6."
"It's like running out of license plates," said Internet Architecture Committee Chairman Olaf Kolkman.
"That won't make driving the next day a different experience."
Kokman said the solution to this problem is to switch to the IPv6 protocol, which can host millions of millions of Internet addresses, while the current protocol provides only about 4 billion.
The effort and expense involved in making the switch to the IPv6 protocol will fall primarily on Internet service providers, websites and network operators, who have to ensure that systems can handle the new addresses and properly route traffic.
Most consumers will not notice the change, although it may be that some need to update the "routers" or modems with which they connect to the Internet.
Source: Ambito
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