In the drive towards solving all networking problems, everything from security to spam to world peace it often seems like, plus the constant and media friendly ‘IP addresses are about to run out’ drip fed line (the same line as has been touted for, oh, at least six or seven years now without any addressing crisis headlines in The Sun) there can be only one saviour, and that is IPv6. Or so we are told.
The evidence is compelling, in that the current IPv4 system only supports 4.3 billion addresses which isn’t enough for the modern world where every device has its own address, where you fridge is networked to the microwave and both go online where they are controlled by your mobile phone of car keyfob. IPv6 can provide enough addresses for everyone on the planet, and then some. Assuming a global population of 6.5 billion, there would be enough for around 5150 each in fact which should be plenty for all those devices.
Well, that’s the headline friendly hype, yet an alternative solution seems to have been forgotten: NAT.