General

IPv6: Will This Dog Have Its Day?

The Internet is in danger of becoming "frozen in time," according to Internet guru Vinton Cerf. With 360 million people roaming through cyberspace, a shortage of IP addresses could leave millions of Internet users "Netless."

by Jim Thompson [March 30, 2001]

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) has been criticized in the past as a dog and pony show designed to sell equipment, that is to make ISPs replace their routers and related software on a mass scale. But it's hoped that the adoption of IPv6, also known as Internet Protocol next generation (IPng), could head off the impending disaster and pickup where IPv4 leaves off. It looks like IPv6 is a dog that will soon have its day.

"The current Internet design is about a 20 year old technology," said Richard Hovey, board member of the IPv6 Forum. "Basically, it's due for a revision."

Dog collared
The problem lies in the limitations of IPv4 or the current TCP/IP. Since an address is made up of only 32 zeros and ones under IPv4, the maximum possible numerical combinations of addresses is limited to 4.2 billion.

However, the actual number of usable addresses is higher since most are temporarily drawn from a pool of available IP addresses, rather than being permanent assigned numbers.

Typically, when someone attempts to log onto the Internet, computers at the ISP assign an unused address from a pool of IP addresses, which is used only for the duration of that connection. This method of dynamically assigned addresses extends the usable pool and the Internet itself.

This scheme has worked well in a world that was, until recently, dominated by temporary dial-up connections to the Internet. The real problem comes with so-called always on devices, like DSL and cable modem access, that require a permanent address. The rapid increase of such devices has placed a premium on permanent addresses and made the pool of 4.2 billion possible addresses seem wholly inadequate.

"A lot of things have been done to stretch the address space and it works fine in a client/server environment," Hovey said. "You don't need a unique address if you are accessing a server in a Web environment. But when you go to always on device environments, cellular phones, or you want to do VoIP, then everything becomes a server and you need a lot more addresses."

The situation is compounded because Internet addresses can only be assigned in blocks of numbers that are a power of two. As a result, if someone wants 33 addresses, they get a block of 64 and 32 of them will be wasted. Experts believe that anywhere from 30 to 70 percent of all potential addresses go unused as a result of the inefficient use of assigned number blocks.

IPv6 is designed to resolve this performance issue along with several other problems, by increasing the possible number of numeric addresses. This won't be a small increase. It will multiply potential Internet addresses by a factor of 80 octillion or 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. With IPv6, the number of available addresses will jump to 340 trillion trillion trillion.

Since IPv6 expands each Internet address from 32 digits to 128; the upgrade to the new language will provide enough space for the expected explosion in Internet devices.

Foo-dogging the Net
According to industry experts, these new devices will come in all shapes and sizes—we'll soon see smart refrigerators that automatically order food when supplies run low and home alarm systems that are linked to the local police station over the Internet.

New automobiles are expected to eat up dozens of addresses in order to communicate with dealers and repair stations, send and retrieve email, and download music. Even your dog will need an IP address so canines can be tracked and found, if lost.

A dizzying array of handheld PDAs and cell phones are also expected to hit the scene. PDAs will be capable of communicating with data banks, libraries and news organizations to get directions, news, information and the copies of the latest top-selling novels. These devices will also talk to other devices, like television sets, gaming gear, office equipment and kitchen appliances.

Such accelerated need for numbers illustrates just how dependent we are becoming on something as mundane as an IP address.

"The problem of limited addresses is not yet acute in the U.S., but there's a real problem overseas," Hovey commented. "In Europe and particularly in Asia, you find that the address space is very small compared to their requirements. In some of these areas, the situation is critical."

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