There's No Shortage Of IP Addresses

[RJ]

'No danger' of Internet-address shortage

24th June 2003

The rumour that Internet addresses will soon run out is untrue, says the man responsible for allocating them in the Asia Pacific region

The idea that there is an Internet-address shortage looming in Asia or any part of the world is "misinformation", according to a senior executive at the body responsible for distributing and registering Internet-address resources in the Asia Pacific region.

Paul Wilson, director general of APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre) denies the shortage, saying that it will take one or even two decades before the current address system runs out.

"The source of the rumour has been one I've been tackling for the last five years, since I started in this position at APNIC. There are a number of reasons why people have this perception," he said.
...

Some industry experts have predicted that IP (Internet protocol) addresses will run out in as little as two years as more users connect. The experts also point to the historical imbalance in the way addresses had been issued, with the US grabbing the lion's share, leaving little for the burgeoning Internet masses of China.

The sums just don't add up, said Wilson.

He said that around five blocks of "slash eight" or /8 addresses are consumed worldwide each year. Each block allows for 16 million host addresses. There are 100 blocks still available in the current IPv4 (IP version 4) system -- enough for 20 years, perhaps fewer when 3G (third-generation) phones take off, but certainly more than the two years predicted by doomsayers, he said.

...

The US Department of Defense said it will move to IPv6 by 2008. Department acquisitions taking place after October of this year must be IPv6-compatible in order to help the military gear up for the transition.

...John Lui, CNET Asia
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2136513,00.html?rtag=zdnetukhompage

(don't you feel better knowing)

 

[biggie]

Interesting story! Especially the part about "3G Phones"

Maybe I should hold on to "3Gserver.com" and "3Gmobiledata.com"

 

[kohashi]

well there was a shortage originally. This is why all local area networks have 192.168.*.*. It used to be every machine had a unique ip address I believe. This was the major cause of a shortage. Imagine large corporations having 1 ip per computer. Now they only need 1 or two for the entire network. IPv6 will be large enough to solve the problems as well. There is not any forseeable shortage in the future one IPv6 comes out...

Were you not sleeping at night RJ, worrying about doomsday ip shortage?

 

[RJ]

Originally posted by kohashi
Were you not sleeping at night RJ, worrying about doomsday ip shortage?

I am sleeping a little better since hearing the news.

Seriously though, some web hosts I have dealt with (RackShack for one) treat IP addresses like they've already run out of them.

 

[kohashi]

well they cost money, dont they?