As of this writing, only 20 IPv4 /8s remain in the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) pool of 256 /8s. At the current rate, the IANA pool may well be exhausted by the end of this year (see graph). And though the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 has been long anticipated, many organizations are ill-prepared for the fallout of IPv4 exhaustion. In addition to being required to maintain Web presence in both address spaces until the Internet's transition is complete, new services, such as Microsoft's DirectAccess, are increasingly becoming available only on IPv6, as tech vendors and service providers increasingly find IPv4 too expensive to support.
IPv4 black market: A matter of supply and demand The coming IPv4 shortage has been foreseen for years, but organizations needing an Internet presence -- businesses, educational institutions, government agencies, and the like -- have largely been in denial about the inevitability of IPv4 exhaustion.
Black market emerging for IPv4 addresses
Posted on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 4:00 CEST by Thomas De MaesschalckCIO notes a black market for IPv4 addresses is emerging, as the depletion of the IP address pool is occurring much faster than expected. The problem has been known for a very long time, but companies are still reluctant to move to IPv6.
