4 ms·
It's not just a "company". Someone has to decide who's in charge of which IP addresses. IANA is the overarching authority; they then delegates large swaths of
by zenexer 7y ago
It's not just a "company". Someone has to decide who's in charge of which IP addresses. IANA is the overarching authority; they then delegates large swaths of IP addresses to regional organizations. RIPE is in charge of Europe.
It would be more accurate to say one continent has run out of IPv4 addresses, but even that isn't entirely accurate. As IPv4 addresses have become scarcer and scarcer, it's become common for companies to obtain IP addresses from registries other than the one that handles their region.
In other words: RIPE is in charge of assigning IP addresses. They're running out of IPv4 addresses to assign to other organizations. That's different from a single company running out of IPv4 addresses, which just means they need to buy more addresses (or find an alternative solution).