2020Media has been working on IPv6 (the next generation internet numbering system) for some time but the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses (IP addresses like 212.124.194.98) is finally gathering some press attention. If you look at this blog page today, January 31st 2011, the counter on the right is showing 1 day to go until there are no more blocks of IPv4 addresses in the IANA bank. If you’re looking at this page later, here’s what it looked like on this historic day:

Keep Calm and Carry On

Of course, the internet is not going to stop working. ISPs and content providers have been working on upgrading their systems to work with the new IPv6 addresses for some time. To draw attention to this, June 8, 2011 is World IPv6 Day – an event organized by the Internet Society and several large content providers to test public IPv6 deployment.

2020Media is a IPv6 capable provider and will be taking part in World IPv6 Day. We also sponsor and support the IPv6Matrix project – an über-cool look at the reality of IPv6 deployment today.

There is one part of the internet lagging behind on IPv6, and that is access – its is almost impossible to purchase an off-the-shelf broadband modem at the moment that supports IPv6. We hope that 2011 will see the release of low cost, easily configurable broadband boxes that allows the average small business and home user to connect via native IPv6.

Bye Bye Ipv4 Ceremony

On Thursday, 3 February 2011, the Number Resource Organization (NRO), along with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Internet Society (ISOC) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) held a ceremony in Miami, Florida to formally handover the last blocks of IPv4 addresses to the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).  This means that there are no longer any IPv4 addresses available for allocation from the IANA to the five RIRs.

“Billions of people world wide use the Internet for everything from sending tweets to paying bills. The transition to IPv6 from IPv4 represents an opportunity for even more innovative applications without the fear of running out of essential Internet IP addresses,” said Vice President of IANA Elise Gerich.

Our depletion counter on the right of this page, now shows how the final blocks are being distributed by the individual regional registries.