Hurricane Electric Issues Warning That The Internet’s IPv4 Address Space will be Exhausted in Less Than One Year

World’s largest IPv6 network stands ready to assist network operators and CIOs while strengthening commitment to IPv6 Certification



FREMONT, Calif., Thursday, July 15th 2010 [ME NewsWire]:

(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Hurricane Electric, the world’s largest IPv6-native Internet backbone and colocation provider, today announced that only one year remains before the world’s IPv4 address space is fully allocated.


Hurricane Electric’s Exhaustion counter, an iPhone/Android application and web widget nicknamed “ByeBye v4” that counts down the days to IPv4 address depletion, is now reporting less than 365 days left to go.


To assist corporations in the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, Hurricane Electric has committed to hold a series of IPv6 seminars this fall and winter. In the coming weeks, Hurricane Electric will be announcing the seminar schedule and details. In addition, Hurricane Electric has made a commitment to strengthen its free IPv6 certification program, which to date has certified over 15,000 IPv6 users.


“CIOs and network administrators who postpone the transition to IPv6 do so at their own peril,” said Martin Levy, Hurricane Electric’s Director of IPv6 Strategy. “Our hope is that the one-year mark will give renewed attention to this serious issue facing the networking community. As one of the few IPv6-native ISPs, we stand ready to make the transition to IPv6 as seamless as possible.”


The majority of Internet traffic today is composed of IPv4 transmissions, but the IPv4 protocol’s 32-bit address will soon be inadequate to accommodate the rapidly growing number of Internet-connected devices. In order to avoid projected address-space depletion, IPv4 systems must be transitioned to the newer IPv6 protocol, which has a vastly larger address space. In addition to providing distinct, globally-routable addresses for all devices connected to the Internet, the IPv6 protocol also mandates network-layer security and simplifies certain network configuration tasks.


Hurricane Electric first deployed IPv6 on its global backbone in 2001. It is one of the few global Internet backbones that is IPv6-native and does not rely on internal tunnels for its IPv6 connectivity. IPv6 is offered as a core service and every customer is provided IPv6 connectivity, as well as classic IPv4 connectivity.


Last November, Hurricane Electric announced that its IPv6 network had doubled in less than a year to more than 600 associated IPv6 backbones. As of today, Hurricane Electric has increased this count to over 850.


About Hurricane Electric


Hurricane Electric is a leading Internet Backbone and Colocation Provider. Hurricane Electric operates its own global IPv4 and IPv6 network and owns several data centers in Fremont, California, running multiple N-by-10 Gbps links throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Founded by Mike Leber in his garage in 1994, Hurricane Electric now operates the largest IPv6 Internet Backbone in the world as measured by the number of networks connected.


For additional information on Hurricane Electric, please visit http://www.he.net.


For media enquiries, please contact:
Milldam Public Affairs LLC
Adam Waitkunas,
978-369-0406 (office voice)
978-828-8304 (mobile)
awaitkunas@milldampa.com