Prague, 8 June 2010 – According to our current estimates, all available blocks of IP addresses using the current IPv4 protocol will disappear in one year. In the first half of 2012, IP addresses will also run out on the regional level and with Internet providers who assign addresses to end users. If the switch to the IPv6 protocol is not completed on time, the expansion of the Internet may be jeopardized. The CZ.NIC association, the administrator of the .CZ top-level domain, therefore invites providers of Internet services to adopt a responsible approach to this issue in the interest of a trouble-free future of the Czech Internet. Among websites with the .CZ domain, only a small fraction is available through the IPv6 protocol – not even 11 thousands (10,127).

IP addresses are the building stones of the Internet because without them computers could not be interconnected with the global network. The IPv4 version was created as early as in the 1970s and offered capacity for connecting less than 4 billion computers. A solution to the rapidly diminishing stock of IP addresses of version 4 has been around for several years. It is a new version of the Internet protocol – IPv6. It provides what seems to be an inexhaustible stock of new addresses (2^128, which is roughly 3 plus 38 zeros) but is still not fully used.

„Only six percent out of the original stock of IPv4 addresses is available, and their number is diminishing even more rapidly than we thought one year ago. 2012 may seem far away, but a complete switch to IPv6 is a matter of years. In terms of technological complexity, it is a process comparable to the introduction of digital television. We can make it but we should deploy the solution as soon as possible in a concerted effort of connection and content providers, public administration as well as end users,” says Ondřej Fillip, CZ.NIC CEO.

For providers of Internet services, the switch to IPv6 primarily means investing into IPv6-compatible technologies. The volume of investment will depend on how much infrastructure the respective entity has. For end users of the Internet, the switch to a new protocol will require the purchase of a new modem that will support IPv6. Such devices will usually cost between 1,000 and 2,000 CZK.