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Every device that goes online, whether it is a router, phone or computer, is allocated a unique IP address. IPv4 currently provides four billion addresses, but the boom in popularity of laptops and smart phones means those addresses are likely to be used up by 2010.

In order to prevent a situation where users can't get online with some devices, Cerf, the outgoing chairman of Icann, told

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the BBC that ISPs needed to migrate to IPv6, which provides 340 trillion trillion trillion separate addresses.

IPv6 was standardised 10 years ago but rollout has been fitful, and has so far found little traction outside Asia.

"The reason they [ISPs] haven't - which is quite understandable - is that customers haven't asked for it yet," Cerf told the BBC. "My job, whether with my Icann hat on or not, is to persuade them to ask for it."

One potential barrier to uptake of IPv6, however, is its incompatibility with the current standard which would require ISPs to run two separate systems consecutively, escalating costs which would ultimately be passed onto the customer.

"To be clear - if we finally exhaust the IPv4 pool it doesn't mean the internet stops working," Cerf says in the BBC interview. "But people wanting an IPv4 address won't get one. If there is an internet that does not support IPv6, not getting an IPv4 address means not getting on the net."