China feels the IP squeeze

As IPv4 addresses run out, those countries with the fastest-growing number of Internet users will run low on IPs first. A perfect example of this is China, which currently adds more people to the web per year than any other country in the world.

According to Wu Hequan from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the land of the Great Wall is set to run out of IP addresses in two or three years. Compared to the rest of the world, it is in decent shape.

The problem is, this calculation assumes that computer deployment will continue to increase at the same rate. As tech devices like computers, cell phones, and PDAs become less expensive, adoption rises at a disproportionate rate.

IPv6 adoption so far only extends to Chinese universities. It is my guess that the number of addresses needed by this economic powerhouse will increase much more quickly than Hequan predicts. China has the disadvantage of being a relatively late Internet adopter, so when IPs were first allocated, it didn’t receive nearly as many as Western nations.

Source | People’s Daily Online