INFORMATION SOCIETY: COMMISSION CHAMPIONS MOVE TO NEW INTERNET PROTOCOL.

When the current version of the Internet Protocol (IPv4) was conceived in the 1970s, it provided just over 4,000 million addresses, which was more than enough in the days before the Internet explosion. A victim of its own success, the Internet is now nearing saturation point: the IPv4 addresses are expected to run out by around 2005. Moreover, future Internet developments such as wireless machine-to-machine communications, mobile computing and third-generation (3G) telephony will put an even greater strain on these limited resources. The IPv4 can no longer provide each person on the...