At 14:41 17/04/97 +0800, Tony wrote:
>I read in newspapers recently of proposed extentions to 2nd level domain
>names classes
>to include domains such as .biz etc.
>
>Can you tell me or point me in the direction of which org will 
>make such a decision and what the proposals are.
>
>or just point me to a link

http://www.iahc.org

>
>btw. 
>My understanding is that regardless of any new domains there still
>is a 32 bit IP address associated with the domain name, many which are 
>reserved (for reasons I dont know) and many which have already been
>assigned.
>

Yes.

>Arent there proposals for a new IP addressing system (IPv6)? will this
>be a
>64 bit number?. which org is responsible for overseeing this?
>can you point me to a link?
>

Yes. The IETF. Check out http://www.ietf.org for technical details, or any
good trade magazines' back issues for more general discussion. 

>Are there any predictions on when these numbers are likely to be
>exhausted? 
>

The length of this piece of string is subject to interesting variations as
organizations come up with creative ways to do more with less, including
such exercises as CIDR (classless inter-domain routing, again look up the
IETF pages for a start) and NAT (Network address translation). The latter
lets an entire organization access the internet by sharing just one single
ip address (or a VERY large org share access via just one class-C range).

These two exercises have slowed the consumption rate of addresses down so
much that where they were originally expected to completely run out a
couple of years ago, they are now going to last at least a few more years
yet - long enough for IPv6 to have been shipped as an upgrade in most
operating systems, so that it can just be "switched on" sometime later -
although NAT capable routers will, by then, also be automagic IPv4-IPv6
translators as well, so that your own organizational network might not need
to change a thing for quite a long time.

Simon Hackett
(IETF participant whenever time permits)
---
Simon Hackett, Technical Director, Internode Systems Pty Ltd
31 York St [PO Box 284, Rundle Mall], Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia
Email: simon§internode.com.au  Web: http://www.on.net
Phone: +61-8-8223-2999          Fax: +61-8-8223-1777