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What Happens When IPv4 Address Space Is Gone

Posted by timothy on from the stars-wink-out-one-by-one dept.

darthcamaro writes 'We all know that IPv4 address space is almost all gone — but how will we know when the exact date is? And what will happen that day? In a new report, ARIN's CIO explains exactly what will happen on that last day of IPv4 address availability: '"We will run out of IPv4 address space and the real difficult part is that there is no flag date. It's a real moving date based on demand and the amount of address space we can reclaim from organizations," Jimmerson told InternetNews.com. "If things continue they way they have, ARIN will for the very first time, sometime between the middle and end of next year, receive a request for IPv4 address space that is justified and meets the policy. However, ARIN won't have the address space. So we'll have to say no for the very first time."'

2 of 520 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hmmm, maybe that's part of the problem? They never say no to anyone.

    They definitely say no. Not only that, if the utilization of your existing IP space drops below a certain threshold, ARIN will start taking it back. And they won't take back your emptier networks, they'll take back whatever they want (usually the largest ones, i.e. the ones you most want to keep). They also no longer issue anything bigger than... I think a /22? It might even be smaller.

    Everybody except ARIN was always like this, of course. ARIN could afford to be more generous because the US has a disproportionately large number of IPs for its population (and even for its server count). But now they're in the same boat as APNIC and RIPE, so they've gotten much stricter than they used to be.

  2. Re:The Internet is Full by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Informative
    Take the unused blocks from companies that are hogging them: http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/

    GE - 3.nnn.nnn.nnn
    IBM - 9.nnn.nnn.nnn
    AT&T Bell Labs 12.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Xerox 13.nnn.nnn.nnn
    HP 15.nnn.nnn.nnn
    DEC 16.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Apple 17.nnn.nnn.nnn
    MIT 18.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Ford 19.nnn.nnn.nnn
    CSC 20.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Halliburton 34.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Eli Lilly Co 40.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Bell Northern Research 47.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Prudential 48.nnn.nnn.nnn
    UK Work and Pensions 51.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Dupont 52.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Cap Debis 53.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Merck 54.nnn.nnn.nnn
    USPS 56.nnn.nnn.nnn
    Defense doesn't need 7 - count them - 7 all to itself!
    That's 26 - more than 10% - that can be mostly harvested.