[NANOG] fair warning: less than 1000 days left to IPv4 exhaustion

Sun May 4 03:10:06 UTC 2008

Mike Leber wrote:
> Since nobody mentioned it yet, there are now less than 1000 days projected
> until IPv4 exhaustion:
> 
> http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/

 ....

> ps. 1000 days assumes no rush, speculation, or hoarding.  Do people do
> that?
> 
> pps. Of course these are provocative comments for amusement.  :)
> 

I keep on saying: its just a mathematical model, and the way this will play
out is invariably different from our best guesses. So to say "well there's 
x days to go" is somewhat misleading as it appears to vest this model
with some air of authority about the future, and that's not a good idea!

IPv4 address allocation is a rather skewed distribution. Most address 
allocations are  relatively small, but a small number of them are relatively 
large. Its the the timing of this smaller set of actors who are undertaking
large deployments that will ultimately determine how this plays out. It
could be a lot faster than 1000 days, or it could be slower - its very
uncertain. There could be some "last minute rush." There could be a change
in policies over remaining address pools as the pool diminishes, or ....

So, yes, the pool is visibly draining and you now can see all the way to
the bottom. And it looks like there are around 3 years to go ... 
but thats with an uncertainty factor of at least +/- about 1 1/2 years.

regards,

    Geoff