As anyone who uses the Internet knows, Website addresses have migrated beyond the most common .com & .net extensions. Those addresses are just the tip of the problem, however, as anyone who uses the Internet on any type of device, whether it’s a smartphone, Tablet, laptop or traditional desktop computer, has an IP address assigned to that device. These addresses are running out just as rapidly as Website URLs. The reason is that the Internet is running out of its supply of IP addresses developed under Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), originally deployed in 1983. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses, limiting the number that are available for assignment.
As the world’s population continues to increase with more individuals logging onto the Internet, with numbers surpassing 3.2 billion in 2015, adoption of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6, which uses 128-bit) is crucial. IPv6, by its higher bit nature, allows for 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses as opposed to IPv4’s 4 billion. If IPv6 doesn’t see near-universal adoption soon, Internet users will experience continued Internet slowdowns and fewer allocations of IP addresses as the latter continue to be depleted with regular usage.
To learn more about the expansion of the Internet, checkout the academic resource below created by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Online Masters in Electrical Engineering program.
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