6 ms·

Eventually in the future, people will come to realize the over-exaggeration of running out of ipv4 addresses. The unused blocks will come out of woodwork from

Eventually in the future, people will come to realize the over-exaggeration of running out of ipv4 addresses. The unused blocks will come out of woodwork from everywhere. Well, I hope my opinion is wrong.

wtallis 14y ago
There's still a finite number of IP addresses that is below all reasonable expectations for how many devices will be wanting an IP address. Reclaiming unused blocks just softens the shock by making the exhaustion less sudden and more gradual. We're still definitely going to run out.
- Retric 14y ago
  There are a little over 4 billion IPv4 addresses. If they cost even 10c / month the vast majority of them would still be unused. However, because they where free well over half of them are simply wasted and we are "running out".
  - aquark 14y ago
    My ISP feels it is 'reasonable' to charge $10\month for one. $10 x 4B x 12 months would solve the national debt in just a few years...
    - khuey 14y ago
      Assuming you mean the American national debt, not really. That's only $480 billion/year. That wouldn't even plug our current deficit, let alone start paying off the debt.
SG- 14y ago
By future do you mean right now where NAT is being used by some providers already? I know Rogers in Canada has all mobile devices going through NAT unless you pay a nice "VPN" fee. Also the assigned but unused IPv4 blocks don't do anything for other providers that actually need addresses.
- indiecore 14y ago
  and that's extremely profitable for them. Why would they switch to a format that doesn't give them the easy out to gouge customers?
  - SG- 14y ago
    Profitable? I guess, but it doesn't make them much or any revenue since i'm pretty sure 99% of their mobile customers don't really care.
- anonymouz 14y ago
  So a home network will be NAT'ed twice. How nice, we almost got things sort of working with one NAT, now the Internet breaks again.
- shinratdr 14y ago
  Rogers only blocks PPTP VPN connections. Also it's not a VPN "fee" exactly, it's an entirely different APN. If your device doesn't allow you to manually edit the APN, you have no hope of getting your Rogers device to create a PPTP VPN connection over 3G because you cant access the internet.vpn.com APN. However, L2TP and IPSec VPN connections work just fine over 3G on Rogers, no fees or APN changes required. So I'm not positive that NAT is the issue if I can establish the other types of VPN connections although this is hardly my area of expertise.
andreasvc 14y ago
Once no more unused addresses turn up, they can start economizing on the used ones too. For example my university gives a publicly routed IP address to EVERY computer, even though most are completely firewalled off.
- X-Istence 14y ago
  IBM has an entire /8 that they use internally for addressing their computers, none of them are publicly routable or even publicly accessible. Even if they were to start announcing them or selling them it would be a HUGE project for IBM internally to make sure that their computers aren't going out on the web for internal resources, and it becomes an huge issue of having to renumber. Unfortunately there is no good way to support something like that. Some companies didn't need to use the private LAN addresses because they had their own /8 and changing it now would require too much effort and work.
  - andreasvc 14y ago
    I see that it would be a lot of work, but so will switching to IPv6 be. The question is: which will be worse? which will actually happen? I don't know. I'm probably forgetting a lot of things but to me it would seem doable to switch to private LAN addresses using DHCP and NAT, as long as there are no hardcoded IPs lingering around (but only hostnames which can be updated in a central location).
    - wmf 14y ago
      The problem comes when two companies using 10.0.0.0/8 decide to merge. For example, IBM acquires multiple companies every year.
      - eru 14y ago
        You could still keep the networks separate.
      - Zenst 14y ago
        Very valid point - especialy given that many text-books and other Ip education material would tend to bias you to use 10.0.0.0/8 as that is what you do, remember many companies who used the old SCO IP range as there `network chap` learned IP from a popular book that used SCO IP's in there examples. Thing is though, if a pretty compitent company like IBM who know how to do IT have not moved to IPV6 and use public IP ranges for there internal networks albiet router blocked. Well, it just don't bode well for other less technicaly compitent people to move now does it and the cycle of procrastination with IPV4 carry's on :(.

wtallis 14y ago

There's still a finite number of IP addresses that is below all reasonable expectations for how many devices will be wanting an IP address. Reclaiming unused blocks just softens the shock by making the exhaustion less sudden and more gradual. We're still definitely going to run out.

Retric 14y ago
There are a little over 4 billion IPv4 addresses. If they cost even 10c / month the vast majority of them would still be unused. However, because they where free well over half of them are simply wasted and we are "running out".
- aquark 14y ago
  My ISP feels it is 'reasonable' to charge $10\month for one. $10 x 4B x 12 months would solve the national debt in just a few years...
  - khuey 14y ago
    Assuming you mean the American national debt, not really. That's only $480 billion/year. That wouldn't even plug our current deficit, let alone start paying off the debt.

SG- 14y ago

By future do you mean right now where NAT is being used by some providers already? I know Rogers in Canada has all mobile devices going through NAT unless you pay a nice "VPN" fee. Also the assigned but unused IPv4 blocks don't do anything for other providers that actually need addresses.

indiecore 14y ago
and that's extremely profitable for them. Why would they switch to a format that doesn't give them the easy out to gouge customers?
- SG- 14y ago
  Profitable? I guess, but it doesn't make them much or any revenue since i'm pretty sure 99% of their mobile customers don't really care.
anonymouz 14y ago
So a home network will be NAT'ed twice. How nice, we almost got things sort of working with one NAT, now the Internet breaks again.
shinratdr 14y ago
Rogers only blocks PPTP VPN connections. Also it's not a VPN "fee" exactly, it's an entirely different APN. If your device doesn't allow you to manually edit the APN, you have no hope of getting your Rogers device to create a PPTP VPN connection over 3G because you cant access the internet.vpn.com APN. However, L2TP and IPSec VPN connections work just fine over 3G on Rogers, no fees or APN changes required. So I'm not positive that NAT is the issue if I can establish the other types of VPN connections although this is hardly my area of expertise.

andreasvc 14y ago

Once no more unused addresses turn up, they can start economizing on the used ones too. For example my university gives a publicly routed IP address to EVERY computer, even though most are completely firewalled off.

X-Istence 14y ago
IBM has an entire /8 that they use internally for addressing their computers, none of them are publicly routable or even publicly accessible. Even if they were to start announcing them or selling them it would be a HUGE project for IBM internally to make sure that their computers aren't going out on the web for internal resources, and it becomes an huge issue of having to renumber. Unfortunately there is no good way to support something like that. Some companies didn't need to use the private LAN addresses because they had their own /8 and changing it now would require too much effort and work.
- andreasvc 14y ago
  I see that it would be a lot of work, but so will switching to IPv6 be. The question is: which will be worse? which will actually happen? I don't know. I'm probably forgetting a lot of things but to me it would seem doable to switch to private LAN addresses using DHCP and NAT, as long as there are no hardcoded IPs lingering around (but only hostnames which can be updated in a central location).
  - wmf 14y ago
    The problem comes when two companies using 10.0.0.0/8 decide to merge. For example, IBM acquires multiple companies every year.
    - eru 14y ago
      You could still keep the networks separate.
    - Zenst 14y ago
      Very valid point - especialy given that many text-books and other Ip education material would tend to bias you to use 10.0.0.0/8 as that is what you do, remember many companies who used the old SCO IP range as there `network chap` learned IP from a popular book that used SCO IP's in there examples. Thing is though, if a pretty compitent company like IBM who know how to do IT have not moved to IPV6 and use public IP ranges for there internal networks albiet router blocked. Well, it just don't bode well for other less technicaly compitent people to move now does it and the cycle of procrastination with IPV4 carry's on :(.