IPv6 has existed for a long time now (released 1998), but few steps have been taken to move from the very old IPv4 scheme (2^32 alternatives) to IPv6 (2^128 alternatives).
When We Run Out of IP Addresses – PCWorld
I suggest the following solution to speed things up (that’s hopefully already being done): Move to IPv6 for all back-bone equipment and have broadband providers handle mapping from IPv6 to IPv4. Assign IPv6 ranges to each broadband provider that they then allocate to its farm of IPv4 hosts that can then upgrade in a slower fashion.
The latter is important, considering how many still use old software like Windows XP etc.