Until now, a desktop computer has been the main gateway to the Internet for most of us. Yet, the next billion Internet users are likely to log on using a mobile device, and very soon everything in our homes will be equipped with network connectivity.
The ‘connected home’, often exemplified by a refrigerator that places an order to stock up automatically via the Internet when you’re running low on provisions, has been talked about since the early days of the Internet. Yet, driven by technology advancements by companies such as ARM, NXP and Freescale, among others, it is not until now that that the ‘Internet of things’ is finally becoming a reality.
Bringing Internet connectivity to embedded systems means that anything in the home from set top boxes and photo frames to washing machines can be Internet-connected.
However, as a result of these advancements, there is now a pressing need to ensure that the infrastructure of the Internet is able to cope with the growth in the number of devices connected to a global network of home networks.
Every device linked to the Internet needs an IP address to enable it to connect with the rest of the network. IP addresses are therefore critical to the infrastructure of the Internet. Yet, the biggest threat that the Internet faces today is that we’re running out of the current form of IP addresses, IPv4. Very soon, we will see the pool of unassigned IPv4 addresses shrink to less than 10 per cent, and it’s been estimated that the IPv4 pool will be completely depleted by 2011.
The explosive growth of the Internet and adoption of networked digital devices worldwide has led to this IP address exhaustion. The technical community has been aware of this issue for many years, and, recognising that a new version of the addressing protocol system was required to meet future demand, developed the next-generation of IP addresses, IPv6, in the mid-1990s.
Unlike IPv4 addresses, of which there are only 4,294,967,296 in total, IPv6 addresses have a longer format, allowing for about a trillion trillion, trillion, or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768, 211,456 addresses in total.
Because of its longer format, IPv6 allows for more devices to connect to the Internet and helps safeguard the continuing expansion of the Internet generated by the growth in the number of networked devices.
Some in the electronics industry are aware of IPv4 depletion and have taken steps towards deploying IPv6. In most cases, it is very easy to re-program connectivity software on a chip to ensure a device is IPv6 compatible. Changes to the hardware will be required only if the chip doesn’t have the memory capacity required for IPv6.
However, IPv6 is not directly compatible with IPv4. This means that a device connected only via IPv4 cannot communicate directly with a device connected only via IPv6.
Therefore, as the Internet continues to grow using both IPv4 and IPv6, the electronics industry needs to ensure that their technologies are compatible with both versions of IP addressing, referred to as ‘dual-stacking’. If a device isn’t compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6, it will be able to connect with only those devices on the network that are using the same protocol.
Despite the simplicity of ensuring IPv6 compatibility, widespread IPv6 take-up has so far been slow, and many of the best known digital devices available today, including the iPhone, do not yet support the next generation of IP addressing. The main reason for this is that semiconductor developers and OEMs have so far seen little demand for IPv6. Yet, this is changing quickly as the surge in Internet-enabled consumer electronics devices is leading to a complete exhaustion of the IPv4 address pool.
To ensure your company is ahead of the competition and able to deliver complete connectivity on consumer electronics devices in 2011 and beyond, it is critical that an IPv6 deployment plan is developed now.
Only by ensuring that all devices support IPv6, can the ‘connected home’ become a reality and we will be able to protect the sustained growth of the global Internet infrastructure.
Author is Axel Pawlik, managing director, RIPE NCC, a not-for-profit membership organisation that supports the infrastructure of the Internet in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia.
For further information about IPv4 depletion and adopting IPv6