IPv4 Exhaustion: RIPE NCC Update

The IANA IPv4 free pool was exhausted today, 3 February 2011. Each of the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) has now received one of the final five /8s. The RIPE NCC has been allocated 185/8.

The RIPE NCC is holding reserves totaling approximately four /8s (around 75 million individual IPv4 addresses), not including 185/8.

We will continue to distribute IPv4 addresses from our reserves according to the current policy, ripe-509, "IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies for the RIPE NCC Service Region".

When our reserves are exhausted, we will begin to distribute IPv4 addresses from 185/8 according to section 5.6 of ripe-509.

This policy states that each Local Internet Registry (LIR) will receive one /22 (1024 IPv4 addresses) from 185/8 upon application for IPv4 resources. In order to obtain this /22 allocation, the LIR must already have received an IPv6 allocation.

For more information about how to deploy IPv6, please see IPv6 Act Now.

As we are unable to anticipate consumption rates, we cannot fully predict how long our reserves will last. However, we would like to reassure you that our supplies will not be exhausted within the coming months.

Our Registration Services Department has seen an increase in the number of IPv4 requests in the last few days and is working hard to evaluate all requests. We ask for your patience during this busy period.