posted 22 years ago
Actually, 4 billion IP addresses isn't nearly enough for the world we have today. That's less than 1 address per person in the world, and think about all the wirelessly networked devices that are being hyped. Soon, you'll need separate addresses for your computer, your PDA, your phone, your pager, your printer, your company's router, your TVs, your GPS, your refridgerator, your toaster, etc.
Additionally, the way the addresses were initially apportioned was very inefficient, wasting many if not most of the addresses. That inefficiency has been addressed, but the effects linger.
IPv6 is in the works. With v6, there will be over a million addresses per person, and addresses will look like this: 5ffe:1300:4245:5:2363:f92a:83ac:3882. Basically eight sets of four hex digits.
Very complicated.