IF YOU thought it was hard finding the email address that some other john.smith hasn鈥檛 already bagged, that鈥檚 nothing compared with the difficulty you鈥檒l have getting an internet connection for your computer after 2011.
As of this month 85 per cent of the 4.3 billion available Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which identify devices connected to the net, are already in use. Within three years they will all be used up, according to a report by the OECD. 鈥淭he situation is critical for the future of the internet economy,鈥� it says.
The report urges governments and businesses to upgrade from the current version, IPv4, to IPv6, which effectively has an unlimited number of IP addresses. IPv6 has been available for more than a decade but service providers have been slow to adopt it.
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