Vint Cerf,the "godfather of the internet" warned that UK could run out of addresses by 2012.This means that UK will run out of Internet addresses in about 1 year's time if businesses and consumers will not switch to the next generation of net addresses.
This is shocking news particularly for the UK,which had a key role in the Internet's development.
Even though a more modern protocol IPv6 is available,most computers are registered using the IPv4.IPv4 allows maximum 4.3 billion addresses.Therefore,unless people will switch to IPv6 UK will run out of addresses in one year's time.
“If you don’t do something about this the UK will not be able to reach the rest of the world that’s on v6.It’s a business issue that’s of relevance to every company that uses the internet to do business. The ISP will be reduced to selling telephone without a telephone number.” ,Mr. Cerf said.
However,even if UK wants to do something,it is possible not to be enough time to address the problem .
"It continues to boggle my mind that the UK hasn’t taken this up as an issue. People will ask why their new smart devices don’t work. All the promise and potential of these devices will fail if the ISPs don’t grasp this.” ,added Vint Cerf.