ICANN Exec Warns That We're Running Out Of IP Addresses

Oh no! Sound the alarm! Alert the neighbors! The sky is falling! Or is it? We've heard before that the Internet may eventually run out of bandwidth and/or IP addresses, but none of those horror stories ever came to light. But now, another End of the World scenario is presenting itself: the world could soon run out of Internet addresses, despite the fact that ICANN just recently enabled the use of non-Latin domain names.


That's according to Rod Beckstrom, chief executive of ICANN, who is worried that the explosion of connected devices could eat up the 8% or 9% of remaining IPV4 addresses, and that if companies didn't switch over to IPV6 soon, we could all be in a big mess when that wall is hit. He stated in an interview that "we are running out; that move really needs to be made, we're seeing this scarce resource run down." IPV4 only has space for "a few billion" addresses, whereas IPV6 has room for trillions.

Each mobile device that connects to the Web needs its own IP address, and with more and more of those hitting the streets, IPV4 is quickly reaching its limit. So, will companies start making the switch proactively? Or will we have to experience a doomsday scenario before we get it right?