IPcalypse is upon us
When the Internet Protocol that underpins the current Internet was developed, the network was an academic experiment.
A total number of 4.3 billion addresses was considered to be more than sufficient for the requirements of the network, and thus IP version 4 (IPv4) was born. The growth of the Internet to the point that we see today was never envisaged.
The IPv4 address is the unique identifier used by devices on the Internet to communicate with each other. Without unique numbers for both the client and the server, Internet communication is not possible.
The state of IPv4
Of the total IPv4 address space, only 2% currently remains available. This is a statistic which should set off alarm bells in the Internet environment.
Many Internet experts are concerned that these predictions are no longer accurate since there has been a massive increase in IP requests. Some industry insiders are now predicting that we have mere weeks remaining. Andrew Alston from TENET is one such expert and he shares these concerns.
What many have described as an ‘IPcalypse’ is upon us. The dwindling global pool of IPv4 address space will not signal the end of the Internet as we know it – it does however mark a very important milestone in the life of the Internet.
Preparing for the IPcalypse
IPv4 addresses are likely to continue to be available for a while after the central pool is exhausted. The concern is that the addresses are likely to be rationed and will be less easily available. With the laws of supply and demand at play, this is likely to cause their cost to go up significantly.
From the current price of less than 50c per IP address, there are signs that IP addresses are already being traded on the black market for close to R300 each. At prices like this it quickly becomes impractical to provide public IP addresses to end users.
The replacement to IPv4 is IP version 6, or IPv6. This new addressing scheme provides a potential address space that is many orders of magnitude bigger than IPv4. IPv6 will be able to provision unique addresses for the multitude of new devices that are connecting to the Internet each day.
When visits to MyBroadband were recently analysed it was noticed that less than 0.2% of all users of the site have access to IPv6. When the pool of available IPv4 addresses gets close to depletion we are likely to see increasing numbers of Internet services that are only reachable via IPv6.
It is likely that customers will start phoning their Internet service providers and ask why they cannot reach a specific website. The IPv4-only networks will be left with egg on their faces.
Telkom’s IPConnect product is unable to support IPv6 and most of the Mobile operators are probably at least a year away from a usable IPv6 service.
So where does that leave us as Internet consumers? Likely limited to tunneled IPv6 Internet access or going to one of the Universities to experience the real thing.
Prepare for the IPcalypse.
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