Report: Internet Addresses Almost Used Up

In a new report, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned that governments are going to have to take action to ensure the supply of Internet addresses.The report, entitled "The Future of the Internet Economy," says that the current version of the Internet Protocol (IP), which specifies today's familiar four-part IP addresses, will run out of available addresses in 2011. (The 32-bit IPv4 specification has room for 4.3 billion addresses.) The new IPv6 128-bit addressing scheme has room for 3.4?10^38 addresses. ISPs have not been moving to adopt IPv6 quickly enough, the report says, and government involvement will be needed to make sure there are enough addresses to go around after 2011.The Register, PC World