In August, I wrote about how the Web translates web addresses into the numerical addresses that are assigned to servers and devices all over the world. Recently, I’ve been reading about a new problem with IP addresses that the Internet will likely encounter in 2010. When the governing body responsible for managing IP addresses created the current system, they only created the capability for about 4.2 billion addresses across the globe.
This sounds like plenty of addresses, but with the prevalence of wireless devices, multiple server farms for large companies and the way the addresses were doled out, we’re actually nearing the end of the remaining addresses. This is similar to when a single area code didn’t provide enough numbers to support every phone in the area and phone companies had to convert nearly every phone number in the US from seven digits to ten.
So, how will this web problem be solved? By doing something very similar to what phone companies did, and adding four times as many digits to IP addresses, making for a number so large it doesn’t have a name. It’s hard to imagine we’ll ever need that many addresses, but I’m sure future generations will look back at this transition and make fun of our naiveté in thinking this was even close to enough addresses.
If you’re interested in more on the subject, and have a little bit of a math nerd streak in you, here are a couple of links to visit:
