Web addresses to run out in September
02 Feb 2011
The internet is running out of addresses. In the early hours yesterday, IANA, the international organisation overseeing net addresses handed out two of the very last IP address blocks to APNIC, the organisation that handles IP addresses in the Asia Pacific region.
With the handing over of these, the central pool of net addresses would be down to its last five blocks of 16 million addresses each. When these run out later this year, sometime in September, there would be no more of the current generation of addresses.
This is the beginning of the end of IP addresses as we've known them, or as some have dubbed it, the first days of the IPocalypse.
The request for addresses came from the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNic) as it had almost exhausted its current allocation of IP Version 4 (IPv4) addresses.
Under a policy drawn up by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), when only five blocks of addresses remain they are to be quickly distributed to regional agencies.
A ceremony to mark the handing over of the last five blocks of addresses, known as /8s, is slated to be held in mid-March.
