My IP Address Will Someday be v6
As of this month, the Internet has officially outgrown the scale of its original design. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which hands out IP addresses for the entire world, has given out two of the very last IP address blocks to APNIC, the registrar for the Asia-Pac region. This is really the end of IP addresses as we have known them. Some have even termed it the "IPocalypse", but are the implications that dire?
Within the current parameters for IP address numbers, there are only about 4.3 billion combinations that are possible. So when we hit that limit, nothing actually happens. The Internet continues to work. But a few months later people may start to see the effects of a stunted Internet because the number of devices that can connect to it will be limited. However, we will probably never reach the point where my IP address request for a new device will go unfulfilled, because there's already a new address scheme to put in place called v6 that will allow for many more IP addresses then before.