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Back in January of this year, the number of available IPv4 addressed fell below 10 percent, and if you thought we still had plenty of time to transition to IPv6, think again. The Number Resource Organization is now saying that less than five percent of the world's IPv4 addresses remain unallocated.
"This is a major milestone in the life of the Internet, and means that allocation of the last blocks of IPv4 to the RIRs is imminent," states Axel Pawlik, Chairman of the Number Resource Organization (NRO), the official representative of the five RIRs. "It is critical that all Internet stakeholders take definitive action now to ensure the timely adoption of IPv6."
IPv4 has proved popular in part because a single address can be shared by multiple computers by using a technique called network address translation (NAT). NAT has its limits, however, while IPv6 offers an almost infinite number of addresses and a better renumbering scheme.
Comments are closed on this article
Zachary K.
October 18, 2010 at 2:46pm
NEWS: there are no more IPv4 addresses left, no new devices can get on the internet, world panics.
Internet Providers: i guess it is time to switch to IPv6....nah we got a few more months.
compro01
October 18, 2010 at 8:49am
NAT didn't make IPv4 popular. It allowed it to last this long. It has always been a stopgap measure and an annoying hack of one at that.
CleverBullet
October 18, 2010 at 11:44am
I wonder if IPv6 will get rid of the need for portforwarding?
COMMANDER_COOK
October 18, 2010 at 10:19pm
I think it will switch to a sort of hybrid thing where you can forward a port to one IP, or open it for all IPs.
omen3330
October 19, 2010 at 1:43am
And don't forget all the nice QoS features that ISPs can use to make sure we are being good boys and girls.
