Despite previous predictions, networking experts are now saying that the exhaustion of addresses on the current IPv4 scheme could start to show effects before the end of this year.

Any device that you connect to a network is automatically assigned a unique address by the server that helps it redirect incoming data packets to that device, known as an IP (Internet Protocol) address; on a global network like the Internet, giving each device it’s own address is getting tricker. When the Internet was first started, it was to occasionally share small amounts of data between universities but expanded out into business and public sectors, the original infrastructure (a lot of which is used to this day) didn’t foresee that internet connectivity may be extended out to other devices, like today when practically every mobile phone, television or even fridge can connect to internet. Furthermore, the explosion of ‘always-on’ broadband, such as wireless routers, used by people who have are connected even when not using the web, and the near-ubiquity of internet use throughout the day (particularly by students, for which I can vouch) for work and leisure, has made it increasingly hard to manage the growing demand.

The current addressing scheme used by practically all networks is called IPv4, which assigns 32-bit addresses to each device, allowing for around 4.2 billion devices to connect. Whilst that may seem more than enough (which was certainly the attitude taken in the 1980′s) for every web user, think about how many web-enabled devices you have and how the development of third-world countries strives to produce computer-literate children will spread computer use across the planet. Predictions from networking experts previously said that the effects of IPv4 exhaustion wouldn’t be felt until late 2011, but new predictions have put the deadline much closer to home. The solution? IPv6.

IPv6 is a new addressing scheme, which was created in 1998 by the Internet Engineering Task Force, assigning 128-bit IP addresses instead of 32, allowing 2^128 addresses (an amount so high my calculator couldn’t display it) which (at least until the development of web-enabled cyborgs who, it turns out, can also be susceptible to viruses) should keep us going for a while. The far more pressing dilemma, as it stands now, is migrating over fourty years of online infrastructure onto the new addressing scheme, it’s not simply a case of flipping a switch, or turning it off and on again. Very soon, all web-enabled devices will be required to support IPv6 and all servers, routers and Internet Provider equipment that connect everything together will have to be moved onto the new addressing scheme, which is a massive and expensive undertaking.

The race is on to find temporary solutions by freeing up enough address space to allow normal useage of the Internet to continue whilst the migration is co-ordinated, but inevitably the transition must be made. The great web-exodus of 2010 has begun.