IPv4's Last Day: What Will Happen When There Is Only IPv6?

How will we know when IPv4 address space is all used up? And what will happen when that day comes?

The modern Internet has been built using IPv4 (define), which provides for 4.3 billion address, a supply that could run dry within the next two years. Organizations that allocate IP address space like the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) have attempted to forecast when IPv4 address space will be gone, but it's not an exact science, and there is no precise date to mark on a calendar.

At the ARIN XXV policy meetings held here this week, ARIN CIO Richard Jimmerson explained how the organization expects to know when the final IPv4 address is gone.


"We will run out of IPv4 address space and the real difficult part is that there is no flag date. It's a real moving date based on demand and the amount of address space we can reclaim from organizations,"

Jimmerson told InternetNews.com

"If things continue they way they have, ARIN will for the very first time, sometime between the middle and end of next year, receive a request for IPv4 address space that is justified and meets the policy. However, ARIN won't have the address space. So we'll have to say no for the very first time."
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