Running out of room on the Internet
Speaking of the future, the current system of Internet addresses (called IPv4) has room for 4.3 billion addresses. According to a story in Internet Week, one-third of these are already used up, another third has been reserved, and by 2012 there won’t be any left. A much more capacious address system, called IPv6, has been in the works for some time now. Its addresses are 128 bits long compared to the 32 bits of IPv4. Changing to IPv6 will mean retooling networks so the changeover has to start soon.
Incidentally, the phone system is also running out of numbers and you will have to get used to remembering longer numbers. But then nobody has to learn telephone numbers anymore, do they? They’re all stored in the phone’s memory. That will have to get bigger.
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