We’re facing the absolute depletion of Internet addresses in five years.
Predictor: Chapin, Lyman
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Network World magazine, reporter Ellen Messmer poses the following question to Lyman Chapin, “What about the growing shortage of Internet addresses?” Chapin answers: ”It’s definitely considered the most significant engineering problem on the Internet now. A new group has been given the mandate to come up with a proposal to solve the problem. There are three classes of Internet addresses (based on a 32-bit addressing scheme). Class A addresses are too big (for most companies and organizations); they can accommodate [data omitted] number of hosts. Class B can include just over 65,000 hosts. With Class C, only 256 hosts can be on the network. Class C isn’t big enough for most users, and we’re running out of Class B addresses. The operations people believe we will run out of Class B addresses in 12 to 24 months. Solutions on the table include one called ‘supernetting’ – taking a group of Class C addresses and issuing them as a block. If they’re contiguous, you’ve created something between Class A and Class C. The downside is you’re making the routing table problem worse. The number of routes to all possible destinations becomes so large, there’s no memory in the router to store them. We’re facing the absolute depletion of Internet addresses in five years.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1992
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Protocols
Name of publication: Network World
Title, headline, chapter name: Internet Architect Gives Long-Term View
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?Did=000000000675837&Fmt=3&Deli=1&Mtd=1&Idx=2&Sid=1&RQT=309
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty