Watch CBS News

U.S. Running Out Of Internet Addresses; Costly Upgrade Await Companies Which Need More

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- If you need a new Internet Protocol address for your organization, you may want to hop on it. The group responsible for handing out the Internet equivalent of telephone numbers says they are running out according to the Wall Street Journal.

The American Registry for Internet Numbers said it has about 3.4 million available addresses left - which sounds like a lot, but at the current pace they're being purchased the supply could run out this summer.

Internet Protocol addresses are different than domain names that end in ".com" or ".net" - they're the numerical codes that are critical for data moving from place to place. When access to the ARPANET, the precursor to today's Internet, was expanded 1981, engineers established 4.3 billion addresses, thinking that would be enough.

The Journal reported big tech firms are busy stockpiling addresses for future expansion in the cloud - including Salesforce, which last year bought more than 262,000 addresses, and Microsoft, buying over 666,000 in 2011.

At the same time, there is a newer version of Internet Protocol (IPv6) that was approved seventeen years ago that offers a staggering amount of addresses: 340 undecillion, that's 36 zeroes after the 340.

However, to do that, companies would need to upgrade their networking gear at high cost, and the Journal reported only nine percent of the Internet has made the move.

Gartner Research says it would cost the average firm seven percent of its annual IT budget to make the move to the newer version.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.