It's Time to Stop Buying the Capacity Crisis Myth > ipv4 vs 6

ipv4 vs 6

With IP it's a bit different: unlike network capacity, the number of IP addresses is a known quantity. IPv4 gives you, at most, about 4 billion IP addresses. Being that the population of the world is 7 billion, it's just not enough. We could delay the inevitable for a short time by reclaiming IP addresses, using more NAT, etc, but a 32 bit address space really is too small in an age when more and more people and devices are connecting to the internet.

reply to hahahehehoho

reply to hahahehehoho
Could you explain how the conversion from IVv4 to IPv6 is a windfall for the US government.

Leaving wasted IPv4 addresses aside the 32-bit address field limits IPv4 to around 4 billion addresses. The worlds population is currently 7 billion. Most folks in the industrialized world now have more the one IP based device.

Should be obvious the address limitation of IPv4 is a severe problem.

/tom

Obvious? That depends. Unless all of those devices need to accept unsolicited inbound communications, PAT enables 192.168.1.1 to be used by billions of devices. In fact, I'll bet with most routers default setup using the 192.168 class-b, there are already many millions if not billions of devices completely unaware of the address crunch.

I'm certainly pro IPV6 and there are real challenges with IPV4 but I don't think multiplying the world's population by n devices is the best way to convince folks of why IPV6 is important.