EQUTE — Ever since the 80s, Internet engineers have worried about the scarcity of IP addresses, but now engineers say the problem is in the 11th hour.

So will the Internet blow up and send us back to the dark ages? Probably not, but it could still cause some problems.

“I suspect we are actually beyond a reasonable time frame where there won’t be some disruption. Now it’s more a question of how much,” said David Conrad, the general manager of IANA.

Experts say the problem could come to head in the next few years with IPv4 addresses running out between 2010 and 2013. Experts said their estimates were based on routine address use and not the inevitable mad dash for IP addresses at the end of the line.

The spread of the Internet is aggravating the scarce supply even more. Broadband connections and blocks of IP addresses given to companies mean fewer and fewer addresses. Inefficient address use is also a big drain on addresses; companies that have big blocks of addresses assign them to their printers, copiers, fax machines and all their computers instead of running all those assets through a LAN. The mobile Internet boom is also causing problems, draining addresses faster and faster as it takes off.

There are some options that Internet architects have when facing the inevitable end of IPv4 addresses.

There has been talk of reclaiming addresses, but the huge cost and possible legal wrangling necessary for something like that make it a near impossibility.

Running LANs is another option to slow the growth of unused internal addresses hidden behind company firewalls. But this can’t create new addresses, it can only slow it down.

The real solution looks to be IPv6, but until it sees a huge boost from every angle, the number of people using would have to skyrocket. Google says that only 1 percent of computers are using IPv6 standards, according to a 2008 study. Already, 4G Internet service is being designed to use IPv6 instead of IPv4 but everyone else has to catch up.

So the world likely won’t end when IP addresses run out, neither will your sites, but there is little doubt that it will cause problems big and small for some people. So plan ahead, get an extra IP address or two soon if you think you’ll need it and get ready for the switch to IPv6 (or switch now).