The end of the internet is nigh - and in less than three years, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Can it be true? The problem is that the world is running out of internet addresses. More than 85% of the available addresses have already been allocated and the OECD predicts we will have run out completely by early 2011.

These aren’t the normal web addresses you type into your browser’s window, and which were recently freed up by Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the body responsible for allocating domain names, to allow thousands of new internet domains ending in, for instance, .london or .xxx.

Beneath these commonsense names lie numerical internet protocol (IP) addresses that denote individual devices connected to the internet. These form the foundation for all online communications, from e-mail and web pages to voice chat and streaming video.

When the current IP address scheme was introduced in 1981 there were fewer than 500 computers connected to the internet. Its founders could be forgiven for thinking that allowing for a potential 4 billion would last for ever. However, less than 30 years later we’re rapidly running out. Every day thousands of new devices ranging from massive web servers down to individual mobile phones go online and gobble up more combinations and permutations.

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“Shortages are already acute in some regions,” says the OECD. “The situation is critical for the future of the internet economy.” As addresses run dry we will all feel the pinch: internet speeds will drop and new connections and services (such as internet phone calling) will either be expensive or simply impossible to obtain. You can see a countdown clock to this digital doomsday, recalculated daily, at penrose.uk6x.com.

Just as everyone knows the solution to peak oil (use less of it), the solution to the IP address shortage is equally obvious: upgrade to new addresses that can accommodate our hunger for online connectivity. Such a system, called IPv6 (www.ipv6.org ), was agreed more than a decade ago, providing enough addresses for billions upon billions of devices as well as improving internet phone and video calls, and possibly even helping to end e-mail spam.

Unfortunately - and again like peak oil - just because we know what’s good for us that doesn’t mean we’ll do it. The OECD notes that “immediate costs are associated with deployment of IPv6, whereas many benefits are long-term and depend on a critical mass adopting it”. The problem is that the new system is not really compatible with the internet today. If, for example, Google wants to support IPv6, it will need to build a whole new IPv6 web service, complete with new domain names, servers and bandwidth.

And so the internet lurches on, patched with technology that may help it stagger through a few more years, but doomed to slow down unless big players such as Google, BT and governments start investing now.

Maybe at a philosophical level it’ll be a good thing if the internet packs up. We will all be able to shut down our computers and forget the 24/7 economy. I read recently that Stone Age man, with all his hunting and gathering and other chores, still worked only 22 hours a week.