The top-level authority that governs such addresses will distribute the last batches on Thursday, two people with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because a formal announcement wasn’t planned until Thursday.
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That doesn’t mean consumers will suddenly find websites unreachable, though. And if everything goes according to plan, Internet users won’t even notice…
The current Internet address system, Internet Protocol version 4, has been in place since the 1980s.
It allows for a theoretical maximum of 4.3 billion addresses in use, far beyond what was thought necessary for what was then mainly a network for academic use.
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