According to Rod Beckstrom, president of ICANN (the official Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the internet that now serves as a base for many of the new digital AV services will run out of internet addresses in about one year’s time.
Vinton Cerf, internet pioneer and now Google’s chief internet evangelist, recorded a video to urge all industries to address this. Even Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the internet, publicly expressed concern.
The insanity that the internet would simply run out of room is finally coming true. It’s not only computers that are consuming IP addresses: it’s all those smartphones, iPads, mobile devices, digital signage, and now even home TVs that require internet access.
To that explosion of connected devices, add the emerging Internet of Things. Thanks largely to sensor data, smart grids, and RFIDs, almost any Thing worth tracking will have its own IP address in the future. If you think this is far-fetched, consider companies such as Gillette, which is running trials with RFIDs embedded in its packages of razor blades, tracking products from factory to warehouse to customer.
Beyond corporate customers, AV’s main customers (hotels, schools, transport, and the building industry) are expected to be leading the adoption of internet-swallowing RFIDs. And all of this internet-sucking development is way beyond the infrastructure’s ability to deliver.
