An interesting article discusses how, within the next four years, the number of devices connected to the internet worldwide will approach fifteen billion units, doubling the population of our planet.
Experts in the field believe that current web technologies will not be able to handle such a load, potentially paralyzing the Global Network. Could this be the End of the Internet as we know it?
Recently, technology giant Cisco published its predictions about the future of the Internet. According to Cisco’s experts, the strain on the network infrastructure will come not only from the vast number of devices connected to the Internet but also from the exponentially increasing traffic.
By 2015, around one million minutes of video will be uploaded to the Global Network every second, and annual traffic will reach approximately 960 exabytes. This figure corresponds to a billion gigabytes (who knew such numbers existed!). In terms of Internet popularity, it is expected that about 40 percent of the world’s population will be online.
One of the survival strategies for the Global Network, according to experts, is the transition from the current IPv4 protocol to the more advanced IPv6. The current protocol, created back in 1977, supports up to 4.3 billion internet addresses. The last batch of these addresses was distributed to registrars in February this year, making the creation of new domains impossible without changing the protocol.
IPv6, unlike its predecessor, supports a significantly larger number of internet addresses. Despite being approved in 1998, internet companies have been reluctant to make the switch.
A global test of the updated protocol was scheduled for June 8 of this year, with Cisco conducting the test in collaboration with telecommunications giant Verizon, social networks, major internet companies, and many others. As reported by the BBC, all interested parties will soon be able to check their websites and network technologies for compatibility with IPv6.
We’ll have to wait and see…