thoughts about the ip addresses and coming shortages

[basireid]

a few days ago, i read online somewhere about the coming shortage of available ip addresses

 

as i did some searching at the time regarding a php file i was working on, for a fun project, and to learn, i made a file that generates random ip addresses, to then click on...

 

anyway, the numbers are in groups of four and only go as high as 255...

 

does anyone know more as to why they only go so high? at the time, years ago, they must have figured there would be plenty, until the development of handheld devices that also use ip addresses...

 

so my question, why not drop the limit of 255 for each subgroup and go higher, even to 999?

 

maybe there are some here who will decipher what i am trying to say here

 

and for the code i worked out, i am still not sure what forum section to post it under

 

thanks for the time and for the forum, too much to read here and not enough time

[Daniel0]

Because you can only address 256 different integers using 1 byte. You have 4 byte = 32 bits, which gives you 2³² = 4,294,967,296 different IP addresses. Some of the ranges are reserved, so the actual number is lower.

 

Edit: Fixed typo pointed out by Philip.

[Philip]

Because you can only address 265 different integers using 1 byte. You have 4 byte = 32 bits, which gives you 2³² = 4,294,967,296 different IP addresses. Some of the ranges are reserved, so the actual number is lower.

 

Err 256*

[Daniel0]

Yes. Fixed now

[Philip]

Yes. Fixed now

 

I was gunna say, this whole time I was taught wrong!! Kinda offtopic, IPv6... whats the status on that? I haven't heard a lot on it recently...

[ignace]

Last I heard was they are not gonna go through with IPv6, so maybe they'll give a.b.c.d/e another shot?