How big is the Internet? - about the size of a strawberry

Wed Aug 14 17:06:22 UTC 2013

On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 10:32:13AM -0400, Sean Donelan wrote:
> 
> Researchers have complained for years about the lack of good
> statistics about the internet for a couple fo decades, since the
> end of NSFNET statistics.
> 
> What are the current estimates about the size of the Internet, all IP
> networks including managed IP and private IP, and all telecommunications
> including analog voice, video, sensor data, etc?
> 
> CAIDA, ITU, Telegeography and some vendors like Cisco have released
> forecasts and estimates.  There are occasional pieces of information
> stated by companies in their investor documents (SEC 10-K, etc).
> 

	thats easy...   the number of allocated IPv4 /32s and the 
	number of allocated IPv6 /64s.  By definition, private
	networks (RFC 1918) space is not part of the Internet.

	Or, is your question actually the absolute number of globally
	reachable IP addresses at any given instant?  (reachable from where?)

	Or do you mean anything that might have an IP address associated with 
	it at some time in its existance?

	Clarity would be helpful if you want a repeatable answer.

/bill