The Interweb's tubes are almost full...

[Darren Dirt]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,376871,00.html


...and on that note, does anyone know how to explain IPv6 in like 50 simple words or less? (i.e. how it'll be easily enough to migrate to it)

[Lazybones]

It is like switching from 7 digit to 10 digit phone dialing, everyone will need to update their address books and replace devices that do not support the longer numbers.

If all of your devices do not support the new number standard you may need to upgrade your public device (FIREWALL/ROUTER) to understand the new standard and act as an operator to your old devices.

There will be more numbers available for everyone.

[Thorin]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,376871,00.html

From that article (emphasis mine):

Every day thousands of new devices ranging from massive web servers down to individual mobile phones go online and gobble up more combinations and permutations.

?Shortages are already acute in some regions,? says the OECD. ?The situation is critical for the future of the internet economy.?

As addresses run dry we will all feel the pinch: Internet speeds will drop and new connections and services will either be expensive or simply impossible to obtain.

So, not being able to connect more clients will cause speeds to drop how, exactly?  If no more leechers can be added, but servers continue to be upgraded with faster hardware, wouldn't Internet speeds go up?

[Mr. Analog]

This is FUD.

Being a /. type I see this [IPv4 is Doomed!] article about three times a year...

Yes, we're running out of IPv4 addresses. No, it won't be tomorrow. Yes, we has a solution, IPv6.

I mean, heck even if we get really close to running out, a bunch of unused Class A blocks get reallocated and all is well again.

The troubling thing is right now for most companies there is no financial benefit to moving to IPv6, when IPv4 becomes more expensive to maintain than migration to v6 then I think we'll see a bigger migration, but that's just my opinion.

[Lazybones]

I am actually surprised how many public IPs we have, I foresee companys that have large unused blocks selling off parts for profit near the end before the cost switches to IPv6 being cheaper. By then most big companies should already have IPv6 in testing or running in their mix.

I could also see personal internet going all NAT before we run out as well, with business services being the only ones with routable address.

[Tom]

The good thing is all (internets) networking hardware has been capable of ipv6 for a decade. The problem is with individual ISPs and smaller businesses that haven't upgraded. As it stands, most of shaw's internal network is completely IPv6 ready, EXCEPT for the DOCSIS 2 hardware. It just plain doesn't support IPV6 (DOCSIS 3 does however, so when they get around to upgrading, you get ipv6 out of the box).

I think the "slow down" fears from running out of addresses comes from the fact that each routable block of IP addresses takes up a chunk of memory in many routers across the internet, the truth of the matter is, they already publish routing information down to CIDR/24 block sizes due to fears of people hijacking their route information. So the routers are already stuffed to the brim, and are handling the stress fine.

I could also see personal internet going all NAT before we run out as well, with business services being the only ones with routable address.

After watching a few Google Tech Talks on ipv6, it seems it costs the same for ISPs and businesses to upgrade to ipv6 and to re-jig their IPv4 network. so most people should choose the longer term (ie: CHEAPER) solution.

[Darren Dirt]

Well, however long it takes before we "run out" of IPs, I hope when it happens it doesn't cause the Web to crash

[Mr. Analog]

Well, however long it takes before we "run out" of IPs, I hope when it happens it doesn't cause the Web to crash

Curse you Tipton!