Internet

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When the Internet began it was thought that 32 bits of data would be plenty forever for addresses and devices on the Internet.

The computer, phone, pad or laptop that you are using now to read this has an address.  At the start it was thought that about 4.3 billion addresses would be fine and dandy.  Guess what?  We are running out of them and June 8th is the date where we have to change.

The new system will have 128 binary bits for the address.  This will generate a whopping number of addresses as shown below.

3.40282367 × 10³⁸

That should be enough for a while.   But will the changeover go smoothly as more and more important sites switch over to the new system?  For a time everyone will have to support the old and the new address system.  So let's hope that things will go well.

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Monday, May 30, 2011