IPv4 address shortage reaching critical stage
Summary
Topics
The Number Resource Organization (NRO), which represents the registries, said on Tuesday that less than 10 percent of all IPv4 addresses remain available, threatening the future network operations of all businesses and organizations unless ISPs and businesses step up their migration to IPv6.
"The limited IPv4 addresses will not allow us enough resources to achieve the ambitions we all hold for global internet access," NRO chairman Axel Pawlik said in a statement on Tuesday. "The deployment of IPv6 is a key infrastructure development that will enable the network to support the billions of people and devices that will connect in the coming years."
However, where previous estimates had IPv4 addresses running out in 2011, it now appears addresses are more likely to be depleted in 2012, Pawlik told ZDNet UK. "That is based on the current growth rate, but there might be big allocation requests coming up — you never know," he said.
For more on this story, read "IPv4 addresses: Less than 10 percent still available" on ZDNet UK.
Talkback Most Recent of 51 Talkback(s)
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Deja Vu
Seriously - I remember reading exactly the same news at least 10 years ago...
Zathros19th Jan 2010 -
NAT set it back a few years.
Network address translation helped alleviate the
problem and set it back a few years. But we're
getting to the point where even NAT can't fix it.
CobraA119th Jan 2010 -
Too true
NAT boxes helped, but a lot of home users are now finding that their home routers dont have enough NAT memory space to cope with today's devices and the number of applications that now want to hold ports open for incoming packets. The worst place to see this is in business or bars that bought a cheap home WiFi hub which can't cope with half a dozen PCs running applications like IM, Skype, etc.
PCs already do IPv6 very nicely; I'm using it over a tunnel to my company every day. But few other devices have an IPv6 stack, which I think is very poor planning for any product that needs to last more than a couple of years.
If you are buying a long-life networked device, such as a new TV, you might want to check that it has IPv6 capability, or can have it added later.
A.Sinic21st Jan 2010 -
RE: IPv4 address shortage reaching critical stage
Mac OS X has supported IPv6 for some time now. Bring it on.
BradMacPro19th Jan 2010 -
Really..
There's a whole lot more to this than Mac vs Windows or even LUNIX, UNIX or Solaris. Did you forget switches, routers, printers, WiFi AP's and everything else between your Mac and whatever it is you're "talking" to.
donc1319th Jan 2010 -
What is your printer's IP? This lolcat is hilarious...
Your printer has a registered IP address? What is it? I have a few thousand lolcats that you should see...
submerged19th Jan 2010 -
Yes, there are network printers.
Yes, there are network printers, especially in
businesses.CobraA119th Jan 2010 -
I don't think he was laughing ...
... at the idea that that donc13's printer was on a network, but that it is a node on the public Internet.
RationalGuy19th Jan 2010 -
Dont talk if you dont know...
LOL @ Network printers.
They do have IPs, internal ones. Most likely starting with 10.x.x.x or 192.x.x.x . Corporations dont take that many IPs.
Tommy S.21st Jan 2010 -
Has for years.
Old HP LaserJet 4+ with PostScript. All printing done through an IP on
the home network.
Bruizer19th Jan 2010 -
Wow, that's a powerful OS right there
I must get me one.
Apple is always at the foresk!n of technology.
tikigawd19th Jan 2010 -
LOL - !!! nt
nt
USTechHead19th Jan 2010 -
XP/VISTA/WIN7/OSX/LINUX = all ready to go
What is the problem?
Every wifi router, every network printer, every network storage device should be onboard by now.
If not, publicly out them as manufacturers of substandard crap.
croberts19th Jan 2010 -
XP not so much.
You have to manually installed the IPv6 stack, and then its not a complete implementation. Its missing some key features that are a present in the standard which the other OS's support. And last I heard, MS does not intend on making any changes to it.
Stuka19th Jan 2010 -
It's not hard to install
I mean, It's in the TCP/IP preferences, you just
add the protocol to the list of protocols, it's a
fairly simple installation, and even if
Microsoft's solution still is deficient, it is
nothing that can't be resolved with a few patches.
lemiffe19th Jan 2010
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