IPv4 Address Exhaustion
6 days ago
- #IPv4
- #Internet Infrastructure
- #IPv6
- IPv4 address exhaustion refers to the depletion of unallocated IPv4 addresses, anticipated since the late 1980s due to rapid Internet growth.
- The development of IPv6 was driven by IPv4 exhaustion, with IPv4 and IPv6 coexisting on the Internet.
- IANA and five regional Internet registries (RIRs) manage IPv4 address allocation, which accelerated due to increasing Internet users and devices.
- Technologies like NAT, CIDR, and IPv6 were developed to mitigate IPv4 address shortages.
- Top-level IPv4 exhaustion occurred on 31 January 2011, with all RIRs exhausting their pools by 2019.
- Post-exhaustion, IPv4 addresses are still allocated from recovered or reserved blocks, but ISPs may recycle unused addresses.
- IPv4 address depletion was aggravated by mobile devices, always-on connections, and inefficient address use.
- Mitigation efforts include IPv6 deployment, NAT, private addressing, and stricter allocation policies.
- IPv6 adoption remains slow, with transition mechanisms like NAT64 and DS-Lite bridging IPv4 and IPv6 networks.
- Markets for buying and selling IPv4 addresses have emerged, though legal ownership is contested.