IPv4 and Jamaica

It is not widely known that the IPv4 addresses have all been used up across the world. If you're not in the IT industry, it might not even matter to you anyways. There are even some people that will say the IPv4 ranges have only been distributed but not used up. Yet IANA has no more IPv4 addresses to distribute even if I needed just one, so I think i'm right in saying they are all used up and not may people will argue with that point. ISPs across the world, including those in Jamaica, will need a solution for the future.


This solution is to use IPv6. An addressing scheme developed to fill the void left by IPv4 and will give us  2¹²⁸ addresses. That's because IPv6 is a 128 bit address while IPv4 is only a 32 bit address. 2¹²⁸ Expanded to its binary equivalent is a tongue twisting figure of 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456....let's not focus too much on that crazy number... I know... that's a lot of addresses right.  IPv6 will allow your couch to have an IP address. Addresses will be assignable to every single device that you have in your house, your car, and at work. An address for each human being, and even your cat... get where i'm going here..  more on that later!

The transition to IPv6 is slow and hardly a major focus of any company or organisation. This is true only because of the saving grace of a simple piece of technology called NAT. NAT stands for Network Address Translation and allows for the proxy-ing of private IP or public IP addresses. This technology works by taking addresses that are local or located inside your organization and converting them to public IP addresses that are rout-able on the world wide web. Kind of a buzz kill for the IPv6 protagonists......

Many ISPs in Jamaica and around the world have already begun the transition to IPv6 but will go unnoticed for some time as the world continues to utilize simple technologies like NAT. Once transitioned to IPv6, the world will notice a major shift in how we communicate through devices located in our homes, cars, offices, and the general public. Think of stuff like programming your microwave while you're at work to heat up your lunch (that you left there intentionally) so that it's hot when you open the door at 12 noon. Or even have your refrigerator alerting you on your phone that you need to pick up Ice cream at the store today because you ate the last scoop yesterday.
Weird??? not really...

The truth is that IPv4 will be around for some time to come because of simple technologies like NAT. How long will this time frame be is a very good question.

In any case, lets NAT while we can.