Web could run out of addresses next year, warn web experts

[richardginn]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...b-experts.html

[ua549]

That's been the plaintiff cry since the early 1990's.

IMO it won't happen soon. Companies are actually shedding IP addresses because of NAT.
In the 1980's I had two class C address blocks for my personal use.
Now I use a single IP assigned by my ISP and NAT.
One of my clients had a class B allocation. They now make do with three class C allocations and NAT.
The efficiency in allocation of IP addresses has improved dramatically over the years.

IMO the wolf criers are at it again.

[Nabby]

That's been the plaintiff cry since the early 1990's.

IMO it won't happen soon. Companies are actually shedding IP addresses because of NAT.
In the 1980's I had two class C address blocks for my personal use.
Now I use a single IP assigned by my ISP and NAT.
One of my clients had a class B allocation. They now make do with three class C allocations and NAT.
The efficiency in allocation of IP addresses has improved dramatically over the years.

IMO the wolf criers are at it again.

Quoted for Truth...

[fluffmonster]

so is the number of un-used addresses going up, or is it going down?

[LordZordec]

That's been the plaintiff cry since the early 1990's.

IMO it won't happen soon. Companies are actually shedding IP addresses because of NAT.
In the 1980's I had two class C address blocks for my personal use.
Now I use a single IP assigned by my ISP and NAT.
One of my clients had a class B allocation. They now make do with three class C allocations and NAT.
The efficiency in allocation of IP addresses has improved dramatically over the years.

IMO the wolf criers are at it again.

I have a Windows Server 2008 book I am reading to prepare for the MCITP exam. Chapter 2 is all about IPv6 and why we need it.

NAT'ing is why we didnt run out of IP addresses in 2000, but that only bought us time rather than definitively solving the problem. Now, 9 years of explosive internet growth later, we will still run out unless we begin the transition to IPv6 very soon.

Maybe 2012 has nothing to do with the end of the world, but just the end of IPv4.

[DJBeanPole17]

Maybe 2012 has nothing to do with the end of the world, but just the end of IPv4.

lol

[richardginn]

Maybe 2012 has nothing to do with the end of the world, but just the end of IPv4.

I agree

[ua549]

I'd be happy to move to IPv6, but my ISP doesn't support it.
Because my ISP doesn't assign dynamic IP addresses to anyone, I wonder how many static addresses my ISP will provide.
Having multiple public IP addresses greatly simplifies networked applications such as web and email serving.
It is much better than using local link addressing.

[James]

IPv6. I've wanted it since I heard about it in the mid-90's. The only country that doesn't care about it is the U.S., and that's because of the fact that we have 70% of the IPv4 space allocated to us. The rest of the world has to make do wtih the other 30%.

Can't imagine why we're dragging our heels.

[ua549]

IPv6. I've wanted it since I heard about it in the mid-90's. The only country that doesn't care about it is the U.S., and that's because of the fact that we have 70% of the IPv4 space allocated to us. The rest of the world has to make do wtih the other 30%.

Can't imagine why we're dragging our heels.

Hardware and conversion costs are the biggest suspects.

Think of all the commodity routers and wireless gear used in homes and small businesses that must be replaced. Many low end nics will also need to be upgraded. I know that neither of my routers nor any of my wireless access points support IPv6 though all of my Intel nics do. I'm not sure of the IPv6 capabilities in wireless chips embedded in other equipment such as notebooks, handsets, pda's, iPods, iPhones, copiers, printers, ...

[LordZordec]

So, what we are saying is that because of complacency, short sightedness, and the usual American way of screwing things up, the world will run out of IPv4 addresses in the next few years, and the whole thing will be one tremendous CF.

Sounds about right.

[joe]

Sounds a whole lot like Y2K all over again. We all know how overblown that was.

[MrDigital]

America has plenty of IPv4 addresses, it's only the kids in the rest of the world that have to worry about it. And who cares about them? When was the last time you visited a non-US site? The BBC maybe? It's not exactly a pressing matter that we worry about the Internet problems of the rest of the world.

People worrying about IPv4 are roughly the same group who worry about peak oil, global warming, terrorists and the swine flu; that is, annoying hypochondriacs who need to find something better to do with their time.

The 32-bit IPv4 addressing scheme has over 4 billion available public addresses. There are 6 billion people on the planet. Only about 2 billion of them are on the Internet, if that. Which means you could give every single user a single public IP to NAT all day long and not run out for a long time.

But hey, no point using reason, we should just spend billions making sure all those poor people in other countries can give their toaster an IPv6 address.

And don't even get me started on how ridiculous the IPv6 scheme is. It's bad enough having to remember 12 numeric digits let alone trying to tell someone to ping some obnoxious 32 character hexadecimal IP.

"Oh, you can't connect to your router? Try pinging 192.168.1.1... oh wait, we're on IPv6 now, try pinging 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334."

Yeah, that's gonna end well.

[ua549]

I had a conversation with one local ISP I do business with.
They have no plans to migrate to IPv6 because of cost issues.
Just replacing customer premise equipment will cost them several million dollars.
(They own it and provide it free to their customers.)
Service disruption would be costly to them and for most of their customers.

Bottom line is that they will only migrate when forced to do so and if financing is available.

[Un4given]

I have a feeling the switch to IPv6 will be like the switch to digital TV. The government is going to set a date in the future and then it will be up to everyone to get their **** updated or lose internet/network service.