OK, so Gates denies ever saying the infamous line “640K software is all the memory anybody would ever need on a computer,” but I still think it’s the best illustration of the pitfalls of making predictions about the future-proofness of a technology.
Discussing the impending inclusion of IPv6 records in the internet’s root servers the BBC’s technology news proclaims today:
Under IPv6 an effectively inexhaustible pool of addresses becomes available.
I haven’t studied the matter in any great detail but surely that’ s a very bold claim.
IPv4 theoretically provides 4.3 billion(2 to the 32nd power) addresses, however, there are really only about 250 million addresses that can be assigned to devices due to some of the 4.3 billion being used for private networks and/or multicast addresses. If not for NAT (Network Address Translation), those 4.3 billion, er uh I mean 250 million, addresses would have been exhausted by now.
IPv6 on the other hand theoretically provides bugazuboobillions of addresses – 2 to the 128th power. In a different perspective, that is 4,503,599,627,370,496 address for every star in the known universe – a MILLION times as many addresses per star than IPv4 supported for our single planet.
Ya always here people say to “never say ‘never’ “, but it seems we will never run out of addresses with IPv6. The BBC is probably spot-on with their remark.