ipv6

Today is the beginning of the end of the Internet as we know it.

That's because the rules that govern how data is sent across the Net, a standard called Internet Protocol version 4, just became significantly more obsolete. The central Net authorities just handed out the last batches of IPv4 addresses at a ceremony today in Florida, beginning the cascade of scarcity that eventually will mean the computing industry must make the painful transition to the newer but incompatible IPv6.

It's not an urgent problem for average consumers with broadband or even for many businesses with lots … Read more

Yesterday marked an important step toward the end of Internet plumbing as we know it.

Specifically, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated two of the last seven blocks of Net addresses that use today's Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). That will trigger the automatic distribution soon of the last five, one each to the five regional Internet registries (RIR) that oversee the distribution of the numbers farther downstream, to the Internet service providers and other companies that actually need the IPv4 addresses.

It's hard to predict how long it will be before these eventual customers of IPv4 … Read more

Remember Y2K? The Internet today is facing a similarly big problem all over again, but nobody knew exactly when it would hit--until now.

The problem is the day the conventional Internet runs out of room for new computers because the world has used up the supply of Internet addresses that computers need to communicate over the Net.

It's likely that this week or next, the central supplier of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses will dole out the last ones at the wholesale level. That will set the clock ticking for the moment in coming months when those addresses … Read more

Who knew that 4.3 billion Internet addresses wouldn't be enough?

Internet pioneer Vint Cerf has sounded the alarm bell once again by warning that the world is about to run out of IP addresses. Cerf, who also serves as Google's chief internet evangelist, pinned the blame on himself for the lack of sufficient addresses in a recent interview published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Initially seeing the Internet as just an experiment that would eventually end, Cerf said he never anticipated the world would need more than the 4.3 billion addresses currently capable of being allocated.… Read more

Some of the Internet's most popular domains, such as Facebook and Google, will enable IPv6 on their key services for 24 hours in the late spring, in preparation for the transition to the new Internet protocol, the Internet Society has said.

Facebook, Google, and Yahoo will join with content delivery networks Akamai and Limelight on June 8 to test the services' performance on the companies' main Web sites, the nonprofit organization said yesterday.

Google has offered an IPv6-only version of its site since 2008, but this will be the first time that the company has enabled it for all … Read more

The U.K. government should offer tax credits to businesses that upgrade their networking equipment to support IPv6, according to Vint Cerf, who is widely regarded as one of the founders of the internet.

Cerf, who co-invented TCP/IP, said on Thursday that businesses in the U.K. and the rest of Europe risked being cut off from customers in parts of the world that do have widespread IPv6 support. There will be no more IPv4 addresses available within two years' time, meaning no new people or devices will be able to be added to the Internet using this legacy … Read more

The final stages of the squeeze are arriving: of the 4.3 billion Internet addresses possible with today's Net mainstream technology, 95 percent are gone.

That's the word Monday from the Number Resource Organization, a group representing the world's five regional Internet registries (RIRs) that dole out the numeric addresses.

"This is a major milestone in the life of the Internet and means that allocation of the last blocks of IPv4 to the RIRs is imminent," Axel Pawlik, chairman of the Number Resource Organization, said in a statement.

Text-based Internet addresses, such as http://news.… Read more

The difficulties of adopting the next-generation Internet standard so far have outweighed its advantages, but one key part of the computing industry is showing signs of beginning the IPv6 transition in earnest: Internet service providers.

A total of 32 percent of ISPs offer IPv6 services to business customers today, according to a new European Commission-funded survey, said John Curran, chief executive of American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), one of the world's five nonprofit Internet registry organizations that collectively hand out Internet addresses and keep track of which numeric addresses are connected to which servers on the Internet.

That … Read more

Networking giant Cisco Systems announced Tuesday a deal with meter maker Itron to advance Internet Protocol-based communications for the power grid.

The two companies will create a reference design for using the IPv6 networking protocol to connect everything from people's homes to power distribution equipment on the grid. That reference design will form the basis for gear installed in smart meters, sensors, and computing systems inside utilities, Cisco executives said.

As part of the deal, Itron will license and embed Cisco's IP technology in its meters and distribute Cisco hardware as part Itron's smart-grid deployments.

Right now, … Read more