Internet gets ready for impending 'IPocalypse'

Updated January 28, 2011 15:40:00

In the coming week, the global authority that allocates internet addresses is expected to run out of stock.

Each computer or device on earth needs an IP address to help it connect to the internet. But the existing standard, IPv4, only allows for about 4.3 billion unique addresses - not enough to give one to each person alive on earth today.

The impending milestone means that every number available in the IPv4 address space will have been allocated to regional registries, who hand these out to local ISPs.

Vint Cerf, considered one of the "fathers" of the internet, told a Linux conference in Brisbane this week he was embarrassed about the situation.

"I was the guy who decided 32 bits was enough for the internet experiment," he said.

"My only defence is that choice was made in 1977. I thought it was an experiment. The problem is the experiment didn't end, and so here we are."

A new numbering scheme, IPv6, has existed since the mid-1990s, but not all ISPs have begun experimenting with the hardware and software needed to use it.

Dr Cerf says the internet industry must start working hard to get IPv6 up and running.

"The time for just talking about it is over, we just have to get busy and implement it and demonstrate it," he said.


Across the world, thousands of people are watching the countdown to what some are calling the "IPocalypse".

But network engineer Mark Newton says consumers will not be affected when the global pool's last address is allocated to a regional registry.

"The good news is that all of those registries have about six months of stock - they receive allocations from the global pool ahead of demand, not matching demand," he said.

"The most immediate thing that we're going to see next week is pretty much nothing, it will be business as usual.

"But it'll be a sign that the writing really is on the wall and everyone really is going to have to pull out all stops to handle the migration to IPv6 as soon as possible."

The real test will come when regional registries exhaust their supply of addresses, and can no longer provide any more to ISPs.

One of the alternatives available to ISPs is network address translation, or NAT. This provides ISPs with a way to share IP addresses, so they do not need to give a new one to each customer.

But Mr Newton says NAT is not a perfect solution for everyone: applications like email and web-browsing work well through NAT gateways, but gamers or other users who demand better connections might struggle.

Eventually, he says, ISPs will need to start the process of migrating customers to IPv6.

"As ISPs start deploying IPv6 there is going to be this period that's probably going to be six months to a year long, where it will be quite buggy," he said.

"There are about 400 ISPs in Australia, and I think about half a dozen of them are playing with IPv6 at the moment.

"So for the vast bulk of them there will be a fairly steep learning curve coming up in the next six months or so."

Hardware upgrades

As ISPs change to the new system, users will be faced with the option of upgrading their hardware, or accessing the internet through the NAT gateways, which will be slower and more prone to interruptions.

Mr Newton says many Australian internet consumers will need to upgrade anyway.

"As the Federal Government rolls out the NBN, one of the necessary side-effects of that is that broadband router that you have in your house, you will need to replace," he said.

"The NBN will already be compatible with IPv6: the act of connecting to it will solve this sort of problem for the households that choose to do so.

"We'll probably do the transition a little bit more efficiently and a little bit faster than a lot of other countries in the world."

It took about 30 years for all the available IPv4 addresses to be used up, but the new standard is unlikely to be exhausted as quickly.

"The IPv6 address space is enormous," Mr Newton says.

"The absolute smallest allocation of addresses that you are capable of getting in the IPv6 world is four billion times larger than the entire IPv4 internet.

"It can be thought of as enough to give a network the size of the current internet to every person alive now and every person who has ever lived, and still have addresses available."

Topics: internet-culture, information-and-communication, science-and-technology, computers-and-technology, internet-technology, australia, united-states

First posted January 28, 2011 15:13:00