The American organisation which hands out internet addresses has had to turn down a request for the first time, because the web has run out of space.
It has activated the ‘end times protocol’, says
the Washington Post, with rationing in place for the last few addresses.
ARIN, the American Registry for Internet Numbers, assigns a unique number or IP address to literally everything which connects to the internet, from phones to web servers and smart fridges. Every URL like
www.metro.co.uk and
www.google.com also needs an IP address.
When the internet was first designed, they thought 4 billion unique number combinations would be plenty… But it turned out that was almost as bad a prediction as when tech pioneer Ken Olsen said in 1977: “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
According to Gartner researchers, by 2020 we will have 25 billion internet-connected devices – that’s more than six times what developers planned for when the net went live in 1983.
Vint works at Google, which switched over to a new system in 2012, although many other providers haven’t done it yet. He said: ‘In 1983 the net was an experiment and [4 billion] seemed like it could last forever.’
He explained what will happen if people don’t switch over to the new system: people won’t be able to get on to the net because they won’t have addresses to use, and at that point the internet stops growing.
‘If I had known in 1973 I would have insisted on a much larger space so we wouldn’t have to go through this transition,’ he added.
Many parts of the world have already switched over, including Europe, but America – which runs some of the biggest websites worldwide – has finally run out of space.
