UK ISP Consumers Concerned by Depletion of IPv4 Addresses

July 11, 2011 - PRLog -- The results from 338 respondents to ISPreview.co.uk's latest survey (*) have helped to reveal that 39% of UK broadband users are concerned about the imminent depletion of 'Internet Protocol version 4' (IPv4) addresses and the impact that it could have upon their connections.

An IPv4 address (e.g. '85.23.56.198') is assigned to your computer each time you go online. The address acts like a unique online identifier (not unlike a phone number) and allows you to communicate with other online computers, servers or websites. Sadly you can only have a maximum of 4.3 Billion IPv4 addresses and these are rapidly running out. Adoption of its replacement, IPv6, has also proven to be painfully slow. Some fear that this could lead to a future of connectivity, performance and security problems because the two standards are not directly compatible.

Most ordinary internet users will have little, if any, personal interaction with their IP address. The address is usually part of a seamless (invisible) process and as a result 40.5% claimed to have no idea whether or not their current ISP supports IPv6 and a similar figure (37%) said the same about their internet connectivity hardware (modem, routers etc.). In fact the vast majority of existing consumer broadband routers lack full IPv6 support.

"It's clear that most of the concerns surrounding this issue can be traced back to a simple lack of knowledge," remarked ISPreview.co.uk's Founder, Mark Jackson. "Lately the media has been full of reports, many of which can be conflicting, about what the end of IPv4 could mean for the internet and its users."

"We believe that it is now imperative for UK ISPs, especially big providers such as Sky, BT, Virgin Media, O2 and TalkTalk, to start raising their customers' awareness of the issue. This should include a clear explanation of how they intend to address the problem on their own networks, which would go some way to allaying any confusion," concluded Jackson.

The good news is that ISPs can get around most of the problems inherent with IPv6 migration by running a dual-stack platform, which allows both the old and new standards to work almost seamlessly alongside each other. This method costs money but it's likely to be the only viable solution for many years to come, at least until the old legacy IPv4 hardware and software is no longer used.