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IPv4 depletion “imminent”

Kevin Murphy, October 18, 2010, 16:07:29 (UTC), Domain Policy

The pool of IPv4 address space available to regional internet registries will likely expire in “early 2011”, according to the Number Resource Organization.
ICANN/IANA said today that it has allocated two more /8 blocks of IPv4, approximately 33.5 million addresses, to APNIC, the Asia-Pacific RIR.
This means there are only 12 /8 blocks left, about 5% of the total allowable addresses under IPv4.
Under IANA’s rules, the final five /8s will all be allocated at the same time, one to each of the five RIRs. So there are only seven left to be handed out under the normal process.
The NRO followed up ICANN’s blog post with a press release stressing the importance of adopting IPv6. From the release (my emphasis):

“This is a major milestone in the life of the Internet, and means that allocation of the last blocks of IPv4 to the RIRs is imminent,” states Axel Pawlik, Chairman of the Number Resource Organization (NRO), the official representative of the five RIRs. “It is critical that all Internet stakeholders take definitive action now to ensure the timely adoption of IPv6.”

According to current depletion rates, the last five IPv4 address blocks will be allocated to the RIRs in early 2011. The pressure to adopt IPv6 is mounting. Many worry that without adequate preparation and action, there will be a chaotic scramble for IPv6, which could increase Internet costs and threaten the stability and security of the global network.

There’s a danger that things could start getting messy over the next couple of years, as the RIRs themselves start running out of IPv4 and network managers worldwide start discovering their IPv6 capabilities are not up to scratch.

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Comments (4)

  1. todaro says:

    icaan doesn’t spend alot of time on their main job of insuring the working structure of the internet. i bet if you ask the board of directors what ipv6 was you wouldn’t get a single correct answer. but that’s not important. the important thing is that they initiate new worthless domain extensions so they can collect extra fees and raise their salaries.

  2. What is said…
    “stressing the importance of adopting IPv6”
    What is NOT said…
    “stressing the importance of Leasing Expensive IPv6 Address Space from ICANN RIRs in their Multi-Level-Marketing MLM arrangement…”
    Artificial Scarcity of IPv4 Address Space now becomes Artificial Scarcity of IPv6 Address Space
    The Routing Mafia is going to make it very hard (and expensive) to route IPv6…
    Only fools would get suckered into this Big Lie

  3. I thought we were all set for IPv6, now I find out that there is some uncertainty??? This reminds me of the whole fiasco with the year 2000 “bug” that turned out to be a non-issue after all.
    While we’re at it perhaps it’s time to create a distributed naming system that does not depend on a central authority. Think BitTorrant, Napster, etc. If those systems can operate, why can’t we have a DNSv2?

    • “While we’re at it perhaps it’s time to create a distributed naming system that does not depend on a central authority.”
      ====
      Microsoft has it all ready to go, it is called Peer Name Resolution Protocol – PNRP

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