IPv4 address space is finished for Europe

As predicted before, RIPE NCC has run out of IPv4 address space. At 1535 CET they made the last IPv4 assignment.

RIPE NCC announced that there is no more IPv4 address space left. Each network that runs TCP/IP has a unique IP address. For modern computer networks, IP is a scalable network protocol that defines a common language. Since 1982, the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IPv4) has been used on the Internet.

What is IPv4?

IPv4, 32-bit number, determines a network interface on a machine. IPv4 address that is written in decimal digits formatted as four 8-bit fields which of each 8-bit field represents a byte of the IPv4 address. And the byte of IPv4 address consists of two parts as network and host part.

The final /22 IPv4 allocation from the last remaining addresses was made. There is no more IPv4 Address Space. The last IPv4 assignment was made at 1535 CET today:

“Our announcement will not come as a surprise for network operators – IPv4 run-out has long been anticipated and planned for by the RIPE community. In fact, it is due to the community’s responsible stewardship of these resources that we have been able to provide many thousands of new networks in our service region with /22 allocations after we reached our last /8 in 2012.”

While IPv4 “gone” the internet will keep working, work is continuing on IPv6. It is hard to say when IPv6 will be widely used on the network.

The differences between IPv4 and IPv6

When we compare these two Internet protocol types, IPv6 that identifies individual interfaces and sets of interfaces is 128 bits number. So, they are more complicated than IPv4 addresses. IPv6 addresses include unicast, anycast, and multicast parts. IPv6 addresses of all types are assigned to interfaces which of each belong to a single node.

IPv6 supports addresses that are four times the number of bits as IPv4 addresses. The number of potential addresses is four billion times the size of the IPv4 address space. IPv6 will provide enough address space for the future.

Stay tuned for up-to-date Network/Internet News