What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? In this case, the unstoppable force is the accelerating growth of the Internet combined with the imminent end of available IPv4 addresses. The current demand for Internet addresses has been averaging 250 million per year, but the ongoing growth of mobile connections is expected to surge 11% to 5.6 billion this year, according to Gartner. Meanwhile, the nascent machine-to-machine connectivity market–or, the “Internet of Things”–is expected to add 25 billion connections by 2015.
Network Computing