News, Internet Addresses Will Run Out In A Year. (operating system, Microsoft, routers)

[JD59]

The world will run out of internet IP addresses in less than a year because of the explosion in smartphones, experts have warned.

Internet IP Addresses To Run Out In The World In A Year Because Of The Rise In SmartExperts Say | Technology | Sky News

[Tek_Freek]

Haven't we been reading this same warning for about a decade?

[Sayantsi]

We currently use IPv4, which is limited in size to around four billion addresses; we'll run out of numbers sooner or later, which is why IPv6 was developed. Some companies (like Apple) have been implementing IPv6 for several years in preparation, some haven't. The effect will be seen when you have to change over - if you have an Apple product from 2003 on, the switch will much easier as it is now fully integrated in the hardware, operating system, and some services. Microsoft fully supported it in Vista, but most older hardware (even current routers) is not IPv6 capable.

[swagger]

Originally Posted by John1960

The world will run out of internet IP addresses in less than a year because of the explosion in smartphones, experts have warned.

They're wrong, just as they've been wrong every time some "expert" has made that prediction since the late '90s.

IPv6 isn't being adopted very quickly Internet-wide, but enabling/using it in a captive segment like the smartphone market would be relatively easy, completely negating the "threat" that the so-called "experts" are warning us about.

I'm still waiting for my net-connected can opener. The "experts" said we'd have those by now, too.

[swagger]

An interesting article regarding orgs returning unused IP space:

Psst - Interested in Some Lightly-Used IP Addresses?

BTW, just to clarify on the topic of "running out" of IP addresses, as the article above points out, we're not "running out" of IPs, the "problem" is that ARIN is running out of unallocated address blocks. There's still plenty of addresses that aren't being used.