Are we or aren't we running out of internet addresses? Well, the answer of course is yes, but as The Guardian's Jack Schofield says, this story is ten years old. "What's really happening is a too-slow transition to [IPv6]".
While most of our computers already support IPv6, Schofield says "The
problem is getting people to change over. Plenty of organisations don't
seem to want to change anything until they don't have a choice, which
will be when they finally start to run out of IPv4 addresses.""The transition will probably involve 'dual stack' versions of IP that support both IPv6 and IPv4. So if you want to help Vint Cerf push IPv6 along, be sure to ask whether your router ("internet modem") supports IPv6 before you hand over any cash." Schofield says "boycotting anything that only supports IPv4 is the simplest and strongest way to get the message across".
To read this report in The Guardian in full, see www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/sep/25/internet.