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Interop Returns 16 Million IPv4 Addresses
klapaucjusz writes "Every discussion about IPv4 address exhaustion prompts comments about whether Apple (or MIT, or UCB, or whoever) needs all of those addresses. Interop has set the example by returning 16 million IPv4 addresses to the ARIN pool, extending the IPv4 address exhaustion deadline by a whole month."
How long are they going to keep this up for? Jeez.
So because NAT happens to work for you, and your rather basic needs, we should delay the inevitable instead of fixing the fundamental underlying problem.
Got it.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I'm guessing the best place to free up IP4 blocks is with the cell phone industry. They could roll out IP6 and eventually drop IP4 depending on the model of your cell phone (dual IP schemes in place for the transition). That industry changes so rapidly anyways and has the largest consumer share over the personal computer. Plus, cell phone devices centrally managed for the most part anyways. Shouldn't be too difficult of a task. At least, not nearly as difficult as flipping home users and SMBs over to IP6 in the same amount of time.
Life is not for the lazy.
Internet addresses are more leased than sold. The agencies in control let you use them, they don't give you a deed you get to keep forever. As a practical matter they belong to you because they don't want to cause trouble, but if push comes to shove, addresses can be taken back without compensation.
That may be part of the thought with this. Not only is it altruistic and makes you look good but they may be worried it becomes mandatory later. They worry maybe IANA says "Guess what? We are taking back that block, you've got 1 month to renumber," and it is a big hurry, rather than just doing it and then being in the clear.
If you don't understand the rather complex issues in converting everything over to IPv6, you might want to look in to it. On every level there are issues that have to be addressed. Some of them just cost money, some of them take work, etc.
So a simple example, but a big issue, is that of high end routers. They don't do routing in software, it isn't like they have a general purpose CPU that handles all the routing. They have one, but it is limited in power and is just for control. The routing itself is handled by ASICs. That is for speed reasons, only way to get data around that fast. Like all ASICs they do only what they were designed for. Ok well that means you have have a bigass router that can't handle IPv6. Sure technically you can upgrade the software and turn it on, but that hits the CPU. If anything more than a small amount of flows starts happening, the router crashes. You have to get a new router, that can do IPv6. Fine and well, but that costs a lot of money. These can be 7-8 figure devices. You don't just run out and buy all new ones all the time.
There are also software issues. Not everything handles IPv6 well. A major stalling point is Windows XP. It can have IPv6 added to it, but it doesn't support it by default. No problem on Vista and 7, but there's still a good amount of XP systems floating about. That'll change with time, but right now if ISPs just go IPv6 and fuck over their XP customers, well people get mad.
IPv6 is just going to be a gradual thing. Slowly more and more things will support it, it'll be enabled in more and more places. There isn't going to be a "We stop using IPv4 now and switch to IPv6 now," day, it'll just be a case that IPv6 will get rolled out everywhere. As that happens, you'll start to see IPV6 only services, or cheaper IPv6 services. Your ISP may offer you as many IPv6 addresses as you'd like to have for no cost, or IPv4 addresses at $10/month. Cheaper shared webhosts may do dedicated IPv6 addresses per site, but only one IPv4 address per server. As time goes on, people will probably stop bothering with the IPv4 stuff. New OSes may ship with it turned off by default, and eventually without it at all.
It will take time though. That is the only way it'll happen. Only in the fantasy world of geeks can it just be a switch that gets flipped tomorrow and everyone changes over.
The answer is: they DON'T. Nor does Halliburton, Eli Lilly, Prudential Insurance (!!!), or Ford. In fact, they've done a great job of proving they don't, by running out and securing a number of class B address spaces in other class A/B octets when they should have just given out subnets of their existing Class A.
Even HP, Apple, and IBM are standing on shaky ground; they're international corporations whose primary business is at least somewhat internet related, but they still don't need 16 million addresses in one space.
Please help metamoderate.