When will IPv4 addresses really run out?
When will IPv4 addresses run out? I keep hearing of different dates, and I don't know which one is right. Is there any way to know when the whole world wide Web will have to use IPv6 because IPv4 addresses have run out? Why isn't there a firm deadline?
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ASKED:
April 13, 2010 5:17 PM
UPDATED:
February 2, 2011 8:21 PM
Answer Wiki:
It depends on who you ask. Different groups will give you different answers.
There's no firm deadline because no one has the authority to mandate a change, and a full worldwide change over will cost billions.
Well there are a finite number of IPv4 addresses available for distribution. They are being allocated via the 5 RIRs to ISP's as they are needed. Sometimes needs are higher and sometimes lower so the addresses are allocated faster or slower and the central pool usage
rate speeds up and slows down. If everyone in your office takes some jelly beans out of a big
jar when they want some try to calculate when the big jar will be empty. Not so easy eh.
The latest forecasts are that the IANA central pool will be depleted by July 2011 based on past usage rates.
IANA announced the depletion of IPV4 addresses on 01Feb2011 - with the allocation of 2 /8 subnets to Asia, teh remaining 5 /8 will divided evenly across the other regions:
" The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority assigned two of the remaining blocks of IPv4 addresses - each containing 16.7 million addresses - to the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) on Tuesday, as predicted.
http://newsletters.networkworld.com/t/5320157/295062260/144817/0/ "
IPv6 / Serious NAT'ing anyone?
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Hi, the dates for running out will be around 2011 for the IANA pool and some time in 2012 for the regional registry pools (here’s a site with updated info: http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/).
The reason no exact date can be given is because this depends on the amount of addresses requested. The dates shown are based on the assumption that address consumption will be like in the past. But this situation may change. One factor that changes this is how fast IPv6 will be adopted within the next two years. The more organisations ask for IPv6 space instead of IPv4 space the longer the IPv4 pool will last. As a larger organisation needs some time to integrate IPv6 anyway it is usually not a good idea to wait until the last moment. Silvia
You might find this site helpful: http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html
One factor that changes this is how fast IPv6 will be adopted within the next two years.
IPv6 is, of course, already in use, sometimes without us being aware of it. We supply network access security for AS/400s around the world and had to begin testing IPv6 quite a while ago. Pretty much as soon as we enabled it for testing on some of our servers, Windows Vista began connecting with IPv6 immediately.
Tom
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority assigned two of the remaining blocks of IPv4 addresses – each containing 16.7 million addresses – to the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) on Tuesday, as predicted.
http://newsletters.networkworld.com/t/5320157/295062260/144817/0/
They’re depleted as of now…
They’re depleted as of now…
As noted in the article, reasonable estimates range from three to seven months for depletion. There are no more blocks to distribute to the regional registries. Depletion will happen for each registry when each registry runs out of what’s been now been allocated to them.
Tom