Are we really running out of IPv4?
I would like to challenge the underlying assumptions expressed in the article and many comments. Assuming we are running out of IPv4 addresses is questionable. According to Geoff Huston's presentation at NANOG90 last week, fewer IPv4 /32 equivalents (around 3 billion) were routed at the end of 2023 versus the beginning of it. In other words, the curves that always run up-and-to-the-right have turned downward. And even without .240 there are still another billion addresses technically available.
The supposition is that this is a result of saturation despite the continued growth of devices connected to the internet. The idea of IPv4 saturation is supported by the reduction of prices for IPv4 on the market, which reduction has now been ongoing for over a year. Prices contain information, a lot of it. The routing table also contains a lot of information, and both of these are matching.
The designers of IPv6 (IPNG at the time) could not have foreseen the evolution of the internet into its client-server, CDN inflected state. Or the impact of NAT and the IPv4 market. We never needed 128 bits.
https://storage.googleapis.com/site-media-prod/meetings/NANOG90/4995/20240212_Huston_Bgp_In_2023_v1.pdf
Biting the hand that feeds IT
