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The Net is running out of space, says EC
Friday, February 22 2002
by Andrew McLindon


The European Commission has called for the accelerated roll out of a new version
of the Internet Protocol because space on the Net is due to run out by 2005.



The Commission said that European governments need to be doing more to ensure
that Internet Protocol (IP) version 6 (IPv6) is adopted because the increase in
next generation and wireless technologies over the next couple of years means
that addresses on the current version of Internet Protocol (IPv4) will all be
taken-up sooner than expected. 



Every device connected to the Internet has an Internet Protocol (IP) address,
which is essentially its Internet "postal address." When IPv4 was conceived in
the 1970s, it provided just over 4,000 million addresses, which was thought at
the time to be more than enough.



However, there has been in an explosion in the use of the Internet in the last
five years and now, according to the European Commission, IPv4 cannot provide
each person on the planet with one address. The Commission added that the
situation is exasperated by the fact that IPv4 addresses are not distributed
evenly. Nearly three quarters of IPv4 addresses have been assigned to North
American organisations, with two universities, Stanford and MIT, each having more
than the Peoples' Republic of China.



The Commission said that as a result, European businesses and countries were
limiting their ability to become leaders in wireless computing and telephony by
staying with IPv4. "The current Internet Protocol is making the development of
some of these new systems impossible, which has serious implications for Europe.
IPv4 has, therefore, become a brake on the development of both the global
information society and a new range of technologies and services," said the
Commission in a statement.



The Commission is backing the IPv6 version because with 2 to the power of 128 (or
256 followed by 36 zeros) addresses it will create more locations in cyberspace
"than there are grains of sand on the world's beaches". It will also, claimed
the Commission, provide a more stable, secure and powerful Internet. 



"Without the upgrade, the Internet will inevitably degrade under the mounting
pressure of new users and growing traffic, while new innovations critical to
European competitiveness will be stifled. The importance of IPv6 to European
competitiveness in general can not be overestimated," said Erkki Liikanen,
European Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society.



Liikanen said the Commission regards IPv6 as a critical part of Europe's "Next
Generation Internet" strategy and that political commitment from member states
was now required to match research efforts that have already been undertaken.



However, it is likely that IPv4 will be around for some time yet. Manufacturers
will have to equip every device to run on the new standard and telecom networks
will have to run both standards during the transition to IPv6.