The TCP/IP system is undergoing a drastic revision in the IP processes.

Since 1981, IP addresses have used a 32-bit system of four separate numbers separated by a dot, where each number could have a value between 0 and 255. For example, a valid IPv4 number might look like 176.32.98.166. Although this pattern allows for more than 4 billion different combinations (2³² = 4,294,967,296), many of those combinations are reserved for specific purposes within networks, so they cannot be assigned to computers on the Internet.

However, in Internet terms, 4 billion is a very small number, and in February 2011, IANA handed out the last batch of IPv4 addresses that no one had ever used. Although the IANA is trying to recycle older numbers (e.g., addresses assigned to Web servers that no longer exist), this is a problem because people create new websites and other Internet servers every day (Lawson, 2011).