“IT IMPACTS”

While stopped at a traffic light today, I noticed something on a commercial pickup truck for a concrete company that you don’t often see: a telephone number without an area code. Using that very special analytical portion of my brain, I wondered why. It was an old truck. Was that an indication of how old the truck was? Or, a simple prediction of the company’s growth potential?

In the state where I live, there are six (6) area codes. How long will this last? Curious about the growth, I did a quick search and found a map on the Internet that showed that in 1947, the state only had one area code. We know that the proliferation of second lines, fax machines, and mobile phones have consumed phone numbers and area codes faster than anyone could have predicted 60 years ago. 

We face this kind of issue when designing any new system. The challenge is knowing how much growth to plan for. How much capacity do we tie up for future growth? I’m sure most of us know stories where software has limited, or stalled, business growth.

In a similar fashion, we are running out of IP device addresses. The current scheme (IPv4) is based on a 32-bit addressing scheme, which provides a maximum number of 2³², or 4,294,967,967,296 (since there are addresses reserved for special purposes, the practical number is actually less).

The solution is IPv6, which will require new devices, hardware replacements, downtime, money, outages, and a good time for all. However, IPv6 has its limit too. It is 2¹²⁸, which will allow us to put 5000 device addresses per square micrometer. Sounds like that might last a while, doesn’t it?

The question becomes, when will we use those up? What new technological innovation will blow that numbering scheme apart? How small can we make devices? Will we need to assign device addresses to microbes? Nanites? Something will happen. Time has shown us that over and over again. If nothing else, we will need another solution by the time intergalactic warp drives are in mass production. I know what you’re thinking now. You want to suggest that this is all myopic 3-dimensional thinking. You want to talk about multiple universes, multiple realities, and get into a theoretical argument about the 9-dimensional nature of the universe as a growth market and the severe technological limitations of IPv6. It didn’t take long. We need to start planning for what comes next.