New Web address system can pinpoint locations of devices

Little known fact: Top Web sites around the world quietly tested a new Internet address system last week that will soon replace the way every connected device in the world communicates.

Think of it as renaming every house number and street name in the cyberworld. But instead of a mailing address, locations are marked by a sequence of numbers — IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses — and they’re running out.

Though most consumers have never noticed, the shortage in IP addresses has meant that all the computers and devices connected within a business or home network generally “share” an address. That makes remotely accessing any one of those devices difficult.


It’s like sending a mailman to a street but no house number. That’s why accessing your home computer from afar usually requires special software like the popular GotoMyPC.

But when the new protocol, nicknamed IPv6, becomes the norm in the coming months and years, every tablet, smart phone, computer and lamp post will have its own house number and street. And when that happens, the possibilities for innovation are endless.

“The ability to auto-sense a car in the driveway and turn the lights on and off, remote control of your thermostat and the connected home,” are just some of the technologies that will become easier when every device has an address, said Jennifer M. Pigg, vice president at the Hub-based Yankee Group. “There are a lot of those applications — especially light poles for some reason — that require that type of connection.”

Another likely effect is in demand for cloud-based storage services, which is all the rage right now. For instance, the ability to connect devices together with ease to stream music from your home computer onto your smartphone, means the demand for certain cloud storage services could shrink.

However, with more and more devices being used, there will be plenty of demand for cloud-based back-up systems, analysts say.

On Wednesday, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and the biggest Internet players along with Cambridge-based Akamai, Limelight and Comcast launched the first global trial of the new Internet protocol, dubbed World IPv6 day.

Gregory Wood, spokesman for the nonprofit Internet Society, an international organization that helps develop standards for the Web, said the test day was an overwhelming success.

“This was everyone joining hands at the edge of the pool and all jumping in together,” he sad. “The result was things worked pretty much as planned. Most people didn’t notice the difference.”