If you’re Joe User, you don’t have to worry about IPv6 yet. But, if you own a business in Europe, the Middle East or some of Central Asia, start worrying. RIPE NCC, the RIR (Regional Internet Registry) for this part of the world, is down to its last IPv4 block. And, when those old-style Internet addresses are gone, the IPv4 cupboard will be bare.

RIPE has announced that “The RIPE NCC is now allocating IPv4 address space from the last /8 [address block].” A single IPv4/8 address block consists of almost 17-million addresses. That may sound like a lot. It’s not. RIPE is allocating 350-thousand addresses a day. At this rate, Europe will completely run out of addresses on about November 5th.

Good-bye old Internet: Europe is down to its last IPv4 addresses. More >