It's been called the next Y2K, and it's fast approaching – the end of Internet addresses under the current Internet Protocol.

Australian experts warned Monday that the number of Internet addresses available under the current protocol, IPv4, will run out in about 340 days, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported.

Under IPv4, there are only about 232 million IP addresses remaining. An IP address is the unique numerical code assigned to a computer or device by an Internet service provider (ISP).

In 1999, CNN predicted the IP address crunch would come in 2010. Since then, Internet experts have been working on a new protocol that will allow for the assignment of more IP addresses, called Ipv6.

But the rollout of IPv6 is slow-going, in part because ISPs are reluctant to move to the new system.

In his opening remarks to the IPv6 Implementers' Conference in May, Google's chief Internet evangelist, Vint Cerf, asked Internet service providers to move to implement the new protocol.

“The regional Internet registries may be able to allocate IPv4 addresses until perhaps the middle of 2011, although if there's a big run on IPv4 addresses ... it's conceivable that the available space will be consumed even faster, which will undoubtedly introduce a complex and already-growing grey or black market on IPv4 Internet space,” Cerf said in a video message posted to YouTube. “Plainly, we are at a cusp in the IP address space for Internet.”