IPv4 addresses to run out in 12 months

Stark warning for the IT industry.

According to the chief executive of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) the remaining IPv4 addresses available to the industry will run out in less than a year.

Speaking to the ReadWriteWeb blog ARIN chief executive John Curran said that less than six percent of IPv4 internet addresses have yet to be allocated and this will only see the industry though the next 12 months.

The IT industry needs to move to IPv6 as soon as possible he said.

"Deployment [of IPv6] is where we're behind," he said, warning that companies need to address the IPv6 platform issue quickly.

IPv4 addresses are derived from a 32-bit number string, compared to the 128 number string used in the IPv6 system. With the number of internet connected devices increasing at a staggering rate, the amount of addresses available is facing a crunch point, something industry experts have been warning about.

Last month Vint Cerf, the so-called father of the internet, told the IPv6 conference that he was seriously concerned about the situation.

“We're now down below the ten percent level with IPv4 available addresses and certainly within a year's time the allocations will have been exhausted,” he said.

“Plainly we are at cusp in the IP address space for internet.”

He warned that the shortage could lead to a black market in IPv4 address spaces, leading to industry fragmentation.