Will the Internet Run Out of IP Addresses in 2012?

Jan 2, 2010 -
Vint Cerf, also known as the father of the Internet, warned that we'd run out of IP addresses by 2010. That didn't happen. Now some pundits are predicting 2012 as the new doom-and-gloom date for the World Wide Web.

No one knows for sure when the original pool of IP addresses will be depleted, but one thing is certain: The continued growth of the Internet and the increasing use of machine-to-machine communications makes it likely -- and soon.

Here's how it works in a nutshell: IP version 4, or IPv4, addresses are allocated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to regional registries. The registries then allocate IPv4 addresses to individual customers. As it stands, the last free pool at IANA is tracking for September 2011 -- and the last address would be offered to an individual customer about a year later, or about 700 days from now.

"As with all scarce resources, occupation of new address resources will slow down as the free pool shrinks, just as oil consumption decreases as the price goes up," said Dr. Milton Mueller, a professor at the Syracuse University School Of Information Studies' Internet Governance Project. "But sooner or later, the free pool will be gone. IPv4 addresses are fixed in number and most of them have already been handed out to organizations and ISPs."

Exhausting the Pool

Several factors contribute to address scarcity. First, the Internet address space is a fixed quantity, set by the basic Internet protocol standard of 1981. It allows for about four billion unique bit combinations. In the early years of Internet development, address blocks were handed out too easily, Mueller said, because no one knew the Internet would become so large. By 1993, about 40 percent of the addresses had already been given out.

"The regional address registries don't have effective reclamation policies, so once they give out an address block, it never comes back, regardless of how efficiently it is used," Mueller said. "A more fundamental cause of inefficient address usage is the need for aggregation of routes. This is difficult to explain simply, but the current system of routing makes it difficult and sometimes impossible for users to carve up their address blocks into smaller pieces and move them around to different users, so there is a lot of underutilized address space."

What happens when we run out of IPv4 addresses? The impact of an IPv4 address exhaust can manifest itself in a number of ways -- technical and business, according to Pravin Mahajan, marketing manager for Cisco's Core Solutions. There's a possibility of a 'last-chance' rush on the registries, he said, along with industry talk about the possibility of trading IPv4 addresses. However no such model exists today or is forecast to be built.

"Apart from these issues which relate to the procurement of addresses, there's the issue of optimization with available addresses. Optimization involves reuse of existing addresses with translation and tunneling techniques," Mahajan said. "The business impact of the exhaust is already being felt in some market opportunities. Smart grid involves IP-enabling the electric power infrastructure."

According to Mueller, when the world runs out of IPv4 addresses, it will force network operators to use their address resources more carefully and promote two structural adjustments. First, it will promote the use of network address translators (NATs) that put an entire organizational network in a private address space. Second, it will, hopefully, eventually drive ISPs and others to adopt the new Internet protocol, IPv6, which has a very large address space.

Crimping the Internet's Growth

Meeting the challenge means understanding the distinction between IPv4 addresses (the established Internet protocol) and IPv6 addresses, which are not widely used yet.

The Internet itself is unlikely to run out of IP addresses because IPv6 offers a virtually infinite pool. However, the challenge is to make the transition from IPv4 to IPv6. Eventually providers will adopt IPv6 addressing, and the IPv4 exhaust could prompt them to move faster on its adoption.

"The migration to IPv6 will take years, and that will require both standards to be in place for a long time," Mueller said. "If we really develop shortages of IP addresses, it could crimp the growth of the Internet and undermine its performance in various ways."

Shifting to IPv6

As Mueller sees it, the best solution in the short term is for the regional address registries to allow market trading of address resources -- with some restrictions to maintain aggregation -- and to institute more effective policies to reclaim unused address resources. "Longer term," he said, "we must either standardize NAT arrangements in a way that allows a huge expansion of the address space, or migrate to IPv6."

Mahajan has a similar take. Any technology transition usually involves periods of coexistence before the complete shift. In this case, the transition is expected to occur over many years and possibly decades. That points to an industry need for a coherent plan during this long migration.

"The plan needs to incorporate preservation of the existing mode of operations, preparation for the new technology coexisting with the old, and maintain or enhance business prosperity along the process," Mahajan said. "Industry participants may move at a different pace based on their vertical segment -- wireline, mobile, cable, etc. -- geography and other drivers. The best solution for the transition needs to factor in all of these dynamic components."

<< Back to Top

Online holiday sales hit $27 billion

Dec 30, 2009 - Holiday shoppers brought good cheer to e-commerce retailers, spending $27 billion online from November 1 through December 24, a 5 percent jump over last year, ComScore reported Wednesday.

The period from Black Friday through Christmas Eve was also bright and merry as sales grew by around 3.5 percent, even after adjusting for an additional shopping day this year. Consumer electronics proved to be the hottest selling category, rising 20 percent. Larger retailers outpaced smaller vendors thanks in part to their use of free shipping and marketing via social-networking sites, said ComScore.
(Credit: ComScore)

The growth in this year's online holiday sales showed improvement over 2008, when sales dropped by 3 percent. Results were likely helped by a snowstorm that blanketed the East Coast the weekend of December 19-20, forcing many shoppers to pick up those last-minute gifts online.

"Online sales growth this year was driven by a continued increase in the number of people buying online, but consumers' economic challenges resulted in a slight decline versus last year in the amount spent per buyer," said ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni in a statement. "The season featured a strong start as a result of early retailer promotions and a very strong finish helped by the snowstorms that occurred the weekend of December 19-20, retailers' willingness to offer free shipping later in the season, and consumers' confidence in expedited shipping arriving in time."

<< Back to Top

'Google phone' debut expected this week

Jan 3, 2010 - WASHINGTON (AFP) – Google is expected to ring in the new year by unveiling its own smartphone on Tuesday, the Nexus One, in a bid to expand its powerful Web brand in the booming mobile arena.

The Internet search and advertising giant has already gained a foothold in the market with its Android mobile operating system, featured in a number of phones starting with T-Mobile's G1 in October 2008 and more recently with the Droid from Motorola.

But the Nexus One, designed by Taiwanese handset maker HTC, represents a significant departure in that Google is expected to sell the Google-branded phone directly to consumers who will not be tied to any one telecom carrier.

Apple's popular iPhone, for example, is available exclusively in the United States through AT&T, but buyers of the "Google phone" will reportedly have their choice of wireless carriers.

Technology blog Gizmodo, citing leaked documents, said the Nexus One will cost 530 dollars "unlocked" -- meaning it isn't tied to a specific carrier -- or 180 dollars with a two-year service agreement with T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG.

Google has been coy about any plans to jump headfirst into the fast-growing smartphone market, dropping hints but not confirming its intentions outright.

Agence France-Presse and other media outlets have been invited to a press event on Tuesday at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, billed only as an "Android press gathering."

"With the launch of the first Android-powered device just over a year ago, we've seen how a powerful, open platform can spur mobile product innovation," the invitation said. "And this is just the beginning of what's possible."

Google provided no further details about the event, whose timing appears to be an attempt to upstage the Consumer Electronics Show, the annual technology extravaganza which opens in Las Vegas on January 7.

Among the hints dropped by Google was a blog post last month in which the company said employees were testing a mobile product internally in an exercise known in the industry as "dogfooding."

Google's plunge into the smartphone market has drawn a mixed reaction.

"It looks like Google is moving to see if they can do the Apple thing," said analyst Rob Enderle, of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley, in a reference to the iPhone, which has enjoyed phenomenal success since it was introduced in 2007.

Pointing to Google's 750-million-dollar acquisition of mobile advertising company AdMob in November, a number of analysts said Google hopes to replicate its Web advertising success in the mobile space.

Not all are convinced by the wisdom of the move. "For Google to go into the business of selling phones just doesn't make a whole lot of sense," Gartner analyst Van Baker said.

"Just coming out with a high-end phone really doesn't buy you much," Baker said. "You'd be hard pressed to come up with enough revenue from pushing ads to pay for the phone service."

Ovum research fellow Jonathan Yarmis said Google will have to walk a fine line between marketing its own smartphone and being a supportive partner for the growing number of firms making their own handsets based on Android.

Although Android's share of the US smartphone market is relatively small, it has doubled in the past year to 3.5 percent in October, according to comScore, and Gartner predicts Android-based smartphones will capture 14 percent of the global market by the year 2012.

<< Back to Top