July 21, 2004
(IDG News Service)
Relief is on the way for the Web address crunch by way of a technology that can provide every person and just about every device on the planet with an IP address.
In response to the rapid growth in the use of the Web, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced yesterday at a board meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that it has added next-generation IPv6 technology to its root Domain Name System servers, essentially enabling every person and device to grab an IP address.
The move was prompted by growing concerns that today's system, based on IPv4, could soon become overloaded and run out of domain addresses.
IPv6 quadruples the size of the Internet address field from 32 bits to 128 bits, potentially making available trillions of additional addresses. These will not only allow every human to have an address, but also every cell phone, refrigerator, washing machine or other device imaginable that could be linked to the Internet, according to ICANN.
Yesterday, the top-level domains of Japan and Korea (.jp and .kr) became the first to support IPv6, with France expected to follow shortly, ICANN said.
ICANN, based in Marina Del Ray, Calif., is the global nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the Internet's naming and numbering systems.