Subject: IPv4-addresses

From: Linda Olofsson Hoff <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:49:06 +0000 (GMT)

Hi!

My name is Linda and I am writing a thesis about IPv6 and I am wondering
if you've made some investigation/estimation about when we are out of IPv4
addresses?

Magazines report different numbers but do not tell why and they doesn't
direct to any examination.

Can you help me?

Grateful for answers!

Linda from Sweden 

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From: Ignatios Souvatzis <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 11:05:44 +0200

> direct to any examination.

The traditional estimates are all in the 2003 to 2007 range, I think,
but vary. E.g., http://www.pcin.net/archive/2001/20010124.shtml estimate 2005.

However, although not all possible address blocks are allocated yet, lots
of the connected machines already don't connect through real addresses, but
either through "socks" or "proxy" style gateways or through "Network Address
Translation" boxes. These methods only allow for a few applications to work,
but don't provide a truly transparent general purpose network, so in my
opinion we're effectively at the 110% mark already.

About the transparency issue, read Brian Carpenters talk at
	http://www.hursley.ibm.com/~bc/transp/transp.htm

Regards,
	-is

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From: Thierry Ernst <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 12:33:22 +0200

Hi,

> Linda Olofsson Hoff wrote:

It depends where and who you are.   Most addresses have been allocated
to large organizations, mainly in the US, much less in Europe, and even
much less in Asia, and I don't even dare thinking about Africa.  Then,
from a Noth-East Asia perspective, which is an important groving market,
we are close to running out of IPv4 addresses.   If every Chinese would
ever use a mobile phone with an IP stack,  there is not enough IPv4
addresses for them.  It is therefore clear that some countries are more
pushing for IPv6 than the others.   Thus, any estimation should take
into consideration more political and "geographic" criterias  and not
only be based on the allowable number of address vs to the number of
addresses currently in use.
 
Hope this helps.
Thierry.