#54 - Internet of the future 2

When last we talked about technical issues the Internet and its future was the topic. Let's continue on that path today. One of the driving forces of changing the Internet as we know it is the situation that we are running out of Internet addresses. Known as the IP (Internet Protocol) address, this is the 4 digit number that uniquely identifies everyone on the Internet.

For example Google's IP address is 64.233.187.99. You can take those four number with periods and put them into a web browser and Viola you are at Google.com. Of course remembering www.google.com is alot easier! The Internet translates your www info to the correct IP address and you get to where you are going. The problem with our current IP address system (known as IPv4) is that it is limited to about 4 billion addresses. With the advent of cell phones and PDA's getting on the Internet and with everyone having a blog or web page or my space page, we are running out of addresses.

A new IP protocol (known as IPv6) has been developed and is being implemented as we speak. This address scheme will allow 3.4×10^38 unique addresses (that's alot of addresses). Unfortunately the change to the protocol requires just about everything that underpins the Internet to change. Suffice to say, Change isn't easy. IPv6 addresses are normally written as eight groups of four hexadecimal digits. For example; 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334 is a valid IPv6 address. That has to be understood by all the software and hardware running the Internet. So the gurus of the Internet are now implementing the changes that will move us down this path.

The US government has funded the change to take place in 2008 at its Internet backbone facilities. Tons of public funds (think $Billions) are going into this enterprise. Hopefully much of it will be done without us noticing. But with any change, you can plan on the unexpected.

On another front, the US is sponsoring a completely new Internet built from scratch that will parallel and then completely absorb the Internet as we know it. Research is going on at Stanford and several other universities to define how the "clean from scratch" Internet will look and feel. Your tax dollars at work!