Forecasting IPv4 Exhaustion and IPv6 Migration

The Internet is a global network comprising of various devices that are interconnected with each other through a communication protocol called the Internet Protocol (IP). Since its creation, the Internet has run on Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). However, due to its small size and its soaring demand, the available stock of IPv4 addresses is under constant depletion or exhaustion. This will have a monumental impact on our lives as it will hinder the exponential growth of the Internet, and consequently, the associated Internet services. Furthermore, recent technologies that have been invented rely heavily on IP addresses and thus, the Internet as we know it, is not sustainable on IPv4. This study use secondary data to predict the exhaustion of IPv4 by year 2020. However, the stagnant migration to IPv6 draws serious concern on the phasing-out of IPv4 which may prove to be rolling beyond 2020 or even 2030. Therefore, the exhaustion and migration issue can prove a significant hurdle before the fullest potentials of the IPv6 are realised.