China To Run Out of IPv4 Addresses In 830 Days

JagsLive writes "China is running out of IP addresses unless it makes the switch to IPv6. According to the China Internet Network Information Center, under the current allocation speed, China's IPv4 address resources can only meet the demand of 830 more days and if no proper measures are taken by then, new Chinese netizens will not be able to gain normal access to the Internet. Li Kai, director in charge of the IP business for CNNIC's international department, says that if a netizen wants to get access to the Internet, an IP address will be necessary to analyze the domain name and view the pages. At present, most of the networks in China use IPv4 addresses. As a basic resource for the Internet, the IPv4 addresses are limited and 80% of the final allocation IP addresses have been used."

830 days? China?

Try the whole world. According to this counter [entne.jp], the world will be out of IPv4 addresses in 768 days.

Re:830 days? China?

Really? I thought there was a separate internet in China...

Re:830 days? China?

Try the whole world. According to this counter [entne.jp], the world will be out of IPv4 addresses in 768 days.

So the world runs out of addresses before China runs out?

Did the Chinese government move themselves to outer space?

Re:830 days? China?

There would be a lot more available addresses if companies that were given entire /8 blocks in the 80s and 90s (Ford, IBM, AT&T, Halliburton, etc.) were to give back those blocks. Most of those companies aren't even really using their /8 blocks anymore, with most of the addresses going unadvertised.

Re:830 days? China?

Shame Lehman didn't have a /8 block.

Re:830 days? China?

If 25 companies (are there even that many with /8s?) gave back their entire allocation, that would still only add 10% to the pool. That might buy a little time (a year, if we're at 80% and have two years left), but it's hardly going to solve the problem.

And what does that buy us?

IP4 doesn't have enough addresses, of course a managers solution is to put of the inevitable so that it happens on someone elses watch rather then taking the time we got now to develop and implement a solution.

IF pushing IP6 doesn't work in the roughly 2 years remaining THEN we can use the buffer of under-used blocks as a last reserve. if we use the reserves now, and do nothing then we still have the same problem, just a bit further away but this time with no reserves remaining and no work chance of it being solves in time.

You should run for president, you would do well with your solutions.

Uh Oh!

Sounds like it will be easier than ever to ring the Wong number!

Normal 'net access?

Do any Chinese citizens even have "normal" 'net access now? Thought NAT was used heavily, not to mention the GFWOC

Meet With Congress

To get a quick infusion of 700 billion IP4 addresses -- NOW!

What is the point in having a public IP address

When your WHOLE COUNTRY is behind a firewall? NAT the hell out of that! Flatten it to a /8 network in 10.0.0.0 and put it all behind one public IP. Problem solved!

Q: Why is starting in the Subject: line annoying?

A: Because it breaks the flow of a message.

It's more annoying if subject and post don't...

Pease porridge hot
Pease porride cold
Pease porridge in the pot
Nine days old!

Re:What is the point in having a public IP address

> When your WHOLE COUNTRY is behind a firewall? NAT the hell out of that!

The firewall is more figurative than literal. My understanding is that it basically bans certain IPs/domains. That can be done with a stateless system, while a true NAT/firewall would need to track all packets of all connections of all users. Not impossible, but insanely expensive. Plus it would have the unpleasant side effect of actually firewalling China (i.e. no incoming connections), whereas now they just don't let you view certain things.

The whole point is largely moot anyway. First, as was pointed out above, the entire world is estimated to run out in about 780 days, so they've apparently got more time then the rest of use. Second, the primary usage of IPs comes from blocks assigned to institutions and businesses, with the latter _requiring_ incoming connections. Could a business have one public IP and NAT/load balance their servers and whatnot? Sure, but they could always switch to IP6, which is gonna be a lot cheaper than all these NATs

So will the Interweb Gods force IPv6...

Or will they just open up reserved addresses or something stupid like that?

Netizen?

Netizen is really stupid word, we really don't need more buzzwords.

Re:Netizen?

Worse, they are using "netizen" to describe people who aren't on the internet. Kind of like calling someone a pilot if they would someday like to fly a plane.

Re:Netizen?

One World, Two Internets.

It's got a nice ring to it. LOL

HP

When HP acquired Compaq, HP also got DEC's /8 block of IP4 addresses. Now HP has at least two /8 blocks of IP4 addresses.
.

C'mon HP, be a good netizen and give back the bulk of those IP addresses. Try using NAT instead of hoarding IP addresses that others so desperately need.

China will be first to use IPv6

I predict that we'll see China begin to use IPv6 addresses before most other people. Why?

• Extreme scarcity of IPv4 addresses: China gained internet access well after the era of enourmously wasteful address assignment [iana.org] ended.
• The great firewall is always set up as a traffic relay. Not only does it provide a natural point to set up an IPv6->IPv4 NAT gateway, but running IPv6 internally makes it that much more difficult for dissidents to bypass the firewall.
• China's strong central state would allow mandating of IPv6 and near-instantaneous implementation.
• Chinese sites are accessed by relatively few non-Chinese. Therefore, the penalty for running an IPv6-only site inside China would not be very great.

Granted, I'm no fan of China's human rights policies. But it definitely has an advantage in terms of adopting IPv6. Hopefully, when China switches protocols, it'll catalyze the rest of the world to do so as well.

In other news

Slashdot runs it's 15th story about IP addresses running out "real soon now". The first was something like 5 years ago :)

These stats ignore the fact that there are huge available allocations that can go behind NAT's. An ISP can NAT big chunks of its user network. Charging even a modest amount per IP would free up huge numbers of IPs. There are abandoned blocks (companies out of business) and wildly oversized blocks (MIT etc).

Plus, we've been hearing these stories for years. The idea that the internets resources are going to become ipv6 anytime soon is unlikly. So folks are going to figure out a way to manage the existing pool, where there is lots of room for improved efficiency.

Fun to keep on reading these stories... they're always written as breaking news :)

The worst part is--

They're even running out of RFC 1918 addresses.

Don't worry...

the LHC will end it quicker than that. They estimate some 90 days until they've got their repairs done ;)

They'll just do what they always do

Impose a one IP address per family rule...

Why would China want to fix this?

Seriously their government is hell bent on controlling what goes into and out of that nation and what better way to do that than by forcing people to use a proxy..