Quote Originally Posted by ua549 View Post
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.