India May Face IP Address Crunch

IPv4, the current version of IP addresses allotted to websites, will be exhausted by 2011-12. The alternate system IPv6 deployment remains below 1 percent globally and near-zero in India.
It is in emerging economies where the IP address crunch will be felt, said PK Saji, VP (global infra operations) of Sify. Around 67 percent of the world s IP addresses have been allocated to U.S., 17 percent to the UK and 9 percent to Asia. But, it is in Asia that the demand for IP addresses has grown rapidly over the past year, he added.

Besides research networks, Sify has converted its systems to IPv6 in India. The Web clients, servers and internet service providers (ISPs) would prefer deployment of alternate technologies to circumvent the addressing problem than attempt a complete overhaul of standards, said Verisign India VP Shekhar Kirani.