What is the Issue?

At a ceremony held on 3 February, 2011 the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated the remaining last five /8s of IPv4 address space to the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) in accordance with the Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space. With this action, the free pool of available IPv4 addresses is now fully depleted. To read the full text of this announcement please go to:

http://www.nro.net/news/ipv4-free-pool-depleted

To keep the community informed of the status of the ARIN’s IPv4 address pool, we are now publishing a daily report of our IPv4 inventory of available addresses on our home page, https://www.arin.net.

ARIN still has a pool of IPv4 address space, and we will continue to make allocations in accordance with the policies documented in the Number Resource Policy Manual. The depletion of the IANA IPv4 free pool does have a direct impact on a number of policies. To review these specific impacts and learn more about how IANA IPv4 free pool depletion will effect ARIN Customers, please see:

https://www.arin.net/resources/request/ipv4_depletion.html

The solution to the address depletion is simple: IP addresses made of longer strings of letters and numbers allow for more combinations and we can use more of them. IPv4 (the current Internet Protocol) includes 4,294,967,296 addresses, but IPv6 (the newer Internet Protocol) includes 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses! This seemingly endless number of addresses will hold the future of the Internet, but it requires companies that use and distribute IP addresses to adapt their networks and systems to use IPv6.

Need an IPv6 allocation or assignment? There are plenty to go around, and the Requesting a Resource page on ARIN’s website will show you how to get them.

Statistics and Reports

What is ARIN Doing?

ARIN attends trade shows and conferences around the region to spread the word about IPv4 depletion, IPv6 adoption, and other issues facing the ARIN community. Follow ARIN on Twitter (@TeamARIN), become a fan of ARIN on Facebook, Add TeamARIN to your circles in Google+, join our ARIN LinkedIn Group, or watch our videos on YouTube to keep up with all of ARIN’s outreach activities.

Did You Know?

ARIN has been allocating IPv6 addresses since 1999 and has been actively advocating the need for organizations to deploy IPv6. Some of these actions include:

What Can You Do?

Spread the Word

Need help explaining why your organization must adopt IPv6? ARIN has created a downloadable slide deck [available as either a .ppt or .pdf file] that describes the impending depletion of the IPv4 resource and the need to adopt IPv6.