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IPv4 Unallocated Addresses Exhausted by 2010
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica is reporting on how the unallocated IPv4 address pool could run out as soon as 2010. The IPv4 Address Report gives details on just how fast the available pool of IPv4 addresses is diminishing. Will ISPs be moving towards IPv6 any time soon? Or will IPv4 exhaustion become the next Y2K?"
Telecom companies are switching everything, including cell phones, to VoIP. Soon, damn near every cell phone will have an IP address associated with it. CDMA phones that EVDO rev-A already do. I know one carrier that has a pool of 2 million available addresses, and 20+ million customers with cellphones.
IPv4 addresses are going to be going away very quickly.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
No reason? Ahem, those IP addresses are going to get *VERY* valuable in about 3 years apparently.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
I doubt anyone will be making a concerted effort to switch until it actually becomes necessary. Once the IPv4 address space runs out, hacks will be done to extend it. Ranges will be "repo'd" from companies, or those companies will just start reselling those ranges. Not until there is no space left to squeeze out will people really start caring.
If we do run out of IPv4 addresses for real this time, I predict ISPs will switch to 100% private IP addressing space before even thinking on IPv6.
Heck, it's already happening in other countries. In Chile for example (a reasonably high-tech country) VTR http://www.vtr.cl/, the only cable ISP, will give you ONLY RFC-1918 addresses, period.
The masses won't care. They only care about their basic apps, and ISPs will use that as leverage to control more services, especially all P2P and VoIP-related ones.
Have you considered that Y2K problems were only averted because we recongized the problem beforehand and took steps to correct it? Y2K was a success, not a poster-boy for scare-mongering.