There is a new dog in town, and he’s big! The proliferation of radio streaming has certainly added to the overwhelming global demand for IP numbers. That and the huge growth of mobile streaming apps, ad delivery networks, hosting platforms and social media sites and blogs, have helped to use up all the IPv4 numbers at a far greater speed planned for initially.
In 2010, Securenet acquired large blocks of IP numbers on the new Internet IP Numbering System, which is called Internet Protocol version 6, or IPv6 and uses a combination of alpha-numerics. The top-level authority that governs IP addresses will distribute the last batches of IP version 4 (IPv4) numbers this week.
The new IP numbers will allow the internet to continue to expand and grow, with the newest version IPv6 taking us far beyond the limits of the old system, giving us 2128 (3.4×1038) global IP addresses. Yeah, that’s right, 340 trillion, 282 billion, 366 million, 920 thousand, 938 - followed by 24 zeroes to be exact! When the internet was started, it was thought that the current IPv4 with 4,294,967,296 addresses would suffice . . . wow, were they wrong!
