[c4rv]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19600718

Surely there must be a method for getting back unused addresses.

[Roush]

Yeah, unused addresses do get returned to the pool. There have been periods where the RIPE pool has grown as a result of this.

[noise747]

what makes me laugh is that it been known for a very long time that this would happen and as normal it is left to the last minute to try and sort out.

[flagpole]

i wonder how many are actually in use and how many are just block allocated and lost to fragmentation.

[Thine Wonk]

Originally Posted by noise747

what makes me laugh is that it been known for a very long time that this would happen and as normal it is left to the last minute to try and sort out.

I few things here, almost exhausted not runs out.

There are whole unused blocks that can be brought back in to use, which are huge.

Asia 'effectively' ran out first about 2 years ago.

Lots of core network is moving to V6 freeing up V4 to go back into that pool.

So finally, don't panic. It'll still be a while before the big consumer ISPs move customers over to V6.

This doesn't affect consumers or anyone who already has IP space, unless it's huge blocks and they aren't using them.

Microsoft and Google etc recently bought some blocks from others for over a million, so many aren't being used that nothing drastic is going to happen overnight, you'll just seem some trading and some brought back into the pool whilst the slow migration to V6 continues (and also releases V4 back into the pool).

[noise747]

True, I know someone who until a couple of months ago had a load of IP addresses, he had them for a few years, but forgot about them.

[Keiō Line]

If computer programmers can not count beyond 255 this is what happens. How about this....
Simply use number 256 to 999, or is that beyond the intelligence of the so called experts?

[flagpole]

Originally Posted by Keiō Line

If computer programmers can not count beyond 255 this is what happens. How about this....
Simply use number 256 to 999, or is that beyond the intelligence of the so called experts?

nice idea but that is a million miles away from the problem.

there are 4,294,967,296 (potential,) IP addresses. the fact that they are written like 10.5.128.255 is neither here nor there. they could be written 0 - 4,294,967,296

they are written the way they are because 256 is an 8 bit word and it just makes sense for the way they are stored in memory.

to put this another way the IP address 192.168.1.260 is the same as or would clash with 192.186.2.5

what you are saying is basically they should add more and that is what they have done.

[Maxatoria]

Originally Posted by Keiō Line

If computer programmers can not count beyond 255 this is what happens. How about this....
Simply use number 256 to 999, or is that beyond the intelligence of the so called experts?

Programmers can count to nearly any number but certain technical factors limit it to 256 as they use binary and one byte is 8 0's and 1's

[alan1302]

Originally Posted by Keiō Line

If computer programmers can not count beyond 255 this is what happens. How about this....
Simply use number 256 to 999, or is that beyond the intelligence of the so called experts?

Seems the intelligence of the experts trumps your own

[Maxatoria]

Don't forget when the internet was setup 2^32 possible hosts was seen as a stupidly high number and before NAT if your machine wanted to talk to another machine on a different network it had to have a public IP so alot of the numbers were taken up by US military and education

2^128 in v6 sounds alot but it will eventually run out and probably v7/8 or what ever will probably double it especially when you have everything down to the toothbrush wanting an ip address

[Stig]

Originally Posted by Maxatoria

2^128 in v6 sounds alot but it will eventually run out and probably v7/8 or what ever will probably double it especially when you have everything down to the toothbrush wanting an ip address

No, 2^128 is enough. It's enough addresses for many trillions of addresses to be assigned to every human being on the planet.

[flagpole]

2^128 is approximately 3x10^38 or
340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
or
56,713,727,820,156,400,000,000,000,000 for every person on the planet

Originally Posted by Maxatoria

2^128 in v6 sounds alot but it will eventually run out and probably v7/8 or what ever will probably double it especially when you have everything down to the toothbrush wanting an ip address

2^128 (for IPv6) is 2^96 times the number available in IPv4 (2^32)

doubling IPv6 would mean 2^129

I'm sure at some point it wont be enough but i would expect the concept of IP by then will be gone.

[Maxatoria]

i meant doubling it from 2^128 to 2^256 which hopefully cover but as you say by then there should be something better around

[whoever,hey]

Originally Posted by Maxatoria

i meant doubling it from 2^128 to 2^256 which hopefully cover but as you say by then there should be something better around

2^128 *2 is not 2^256

[Maxatoria]

i meant double as in the physical number of bits not double in the maths sense

[Stig]

Originally Posted by Maxatoria

i meant double as in the physical number of bits not double in the maths sense

... which is completely meaningless.

IPv6 will last us all a VERY long time.

[whoever,hey]

Originally Posted by Maxatoria

i meant double as in the physical number of bits not double in the maths sense

Bits are irrelevant. Each node on the internet takes one of those numbers in that "maths sense".

[johnnybgoode83]

Originally Posted by Keiō Line

If computer programmers can not count beyond 255 this is what happens. How about this....
Simply use number 256 to 999, or is that beyond the intelligence of the so called experts?

Wow, you really are a trollish idiot.