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Last Days For Central IPv4 Address Pool
jibjibjib writes "According to projections by APNIC Chief Scientist Geoff Huston, IANA's central IPv4 address pool is expected to run out any day now, leaving the internet with a very limited remaining supply of addresses. APNIC will probably request two /8s (33 million addresses) within the next few weeks. This will leave five /8s available, which will be immediately distributed to the five Regional Internet Registries in accordance with IANA policy. It's expected that APNIC's own address pool will run low during 2011, making ISPs and businesses in the Asia-Pacific region the first to feel the effects of IPv4 exhaustion. The long-term solution to IP address exhaustion is provided by IPv6, the next version of the Internet Protocol. IPv6 has been an internet standard for over a decade, but is still unsupported on many networks and makes up an almost negligible fraction of Internet traffic. Unless ISPs dramatically accelerate the pace of IPv6 deployment, users in some regions will be stuck on IPv4-only connections while ISPs in other regions run out of public IPv4 addresses, leading to a fragmented Internet without the universal connectivity we've previously taken for granted."
I keep seeing this fear of the IPv4 address pool disappearing, but I thought there was no such things as shortages in a free market? So then what's going on here? Clearly the IANA is refusing to allow the prices (and therefore costs) of IPv4 addresses to rise to reflect the true scarcity of them. I think the ANIPC goes as far to say you don't own your IP address to sell. Prices aren't just arbitrary things, they reflect information about scarcity, and if IPv6 addresses were cheaper to adopt than IPv4 addresses, certainly it could only help spread adoption, while still letting the people who most urgently demand IPv4 addresses get one.
The last blocks ought to be auctioned or raffled off right now, and traded between the owners, with the regional registries only registering who owns an IP address range, no different than what happens on a stock exchange floor.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Thing is, people (usually those with a vested interest in IPv6) have been saying this for at least the past 10 years. Periodically they announce "Oh Noes! We are about to run out of IPv4 space any minute now! Change to IPv6 immediately or we are all doomed!" Only, as we have seen every single time, it's been nonsense. Are there enough IPv4 addresses for everything? Clearly not. Is this a problem? Again, clearly not. IPv4 plus NAT (and DHCP) is a perfectly good solution, it requires not changes in hardware, we don't have to rush out and buy new gear from those touting the IPv4-mageddon, we just carry on as we are with more than enough address space for everyone and everything. Why does my internet-enabled toaster NEED a publicly accessible globally unique IP address, when it is more than happy sitting in my kitchen using my house's private NAT pool which combined uses but 1 single public IP address? It doesn't. IPv6 is an overly complexed solution to a problem which was eliminated yonks ago. The only reason we keep getting these chicken-licken pronouncements of impending doom is because those with a vested interest in trying to flog IPv6 gear find their sales are down. Nothing more.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.