Domain name big bang solving lack of addresses?
Over the last few days I have seen this reported in newspapers and online (here's a couple of online ones - ABC, ZDNet). The articles generally say that ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is set to remove restrictions on domain name suffixes. Currently we are restricted to suffixes that denote countries (eg .au) and a some generic types (.com, .net etc). The new regulations will open this up to allow suffixes such as .pepsi, .paris etc which certainly allows a massive increase in the numbers of useful names that could be created. These articles then go on to imply that this will solve the problem that we have with domain addresses set to run out in 2011 or thereabouts. It's my understanding that this is not the case. Domain names are not Internet addresses. Internet addresses are the numbers we often see in our browsers such as 123.456.789.098. It is these numbers which are set to run out. These numbers use an addressing system called TCP/IPv4. IPv4 is running out of available numbers. Numbers are released in blocks to regions around the world and available blocks of numbers are becoming a scarce commodity. Many of these numbers that have been allocated are not in use and it would be useful if there was some way of recovering these unused ones. Many organisations and governments are working on a numbering system called TCP/IPv6 which dramatically increases the number of available Internet addresses. It is the implementation of IPv6 that will solve the problem of lack of Internet addresses - Domain names are simply aliases for these numbers. These aliases make it easier for us to navigate around the Web as they are meant to be easier for us to remember than the numbered addresses. Cheers, Jerry.
