The World is running out of IP addresses! Today’s Internet protocol system, IPv4, has been in use since the early eighties. The communication protocol has a limit of 4,3 billion addresses. And as you can see from the widget below, there’s now just about 650 million IP addresses left (15%).

The limited number of unique IP’s has forced the ISP’s to use new technologies like NAT (Network Address Translation) which allows multiple servers/computers to share the same IP. However, this breaks with the original ideology that all computers should have their own unique public address.

With IPv6 this will once again be possible as the protocol allows for almost an indefinitely number of IP’s. In other words, every computer or gadget (mobiles etc.) could have their own IP.

For more information on current status of IPv4 see: www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/

But what happened with IPv5?

Odd number releases of the Internet protocol is normally considered experimentally versions. IPv5 is/was among these, also known as ST2 or Internet Stream Protocol 2. It was never introduced as a standard.