Melbourne: Google`s chief internet evangelist, Vint Cerf, has said that the world is going to run out of internet addresses ``within weeks`` and it will be all his fault.
The ``father of the Internet``, who created the web protocol, IPv4, that connects computers globally, said he had no idea that his "experiment" in 1977 "wouldn`t end," a newspaper reported.
"I thought it was an experiment and I thought that 4.3 billion [addresses] would be enough to do an experiment," he said in a group interview with journalists.
The protocol underpinning the net, known as IPv4, provides only about 4 billion IP addresses-not website domain names, but the unique sequence of numbers assigned to each computer, website or other internet-connected device.
The explosion in the number of people, devices and web services on the Internet means there are only a few million left.
The allocation of those addresses is set to run out very shortly but the industry is moving towards a new version, called IPv6, which will offer trillions of addresses for every person on the planet.
"Who the hell knew how much address space we needed? "It doesn`t mean the network stops, it just means you can`t build it very well," he added.
ANI