<h1>
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090102-the-year-in-ipv4-addresses-almost-200-million-served.html" target="_blank">The year in IPv4 addresses: almost 200 million served</a></h1>
<p><a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090102-the-year-in-ipv4-addresses-almost-200-million-served.html" target="_blank">http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090102-the-year-in-ipv4-addresses-almost-200-million-served.html</a></p>
<p>By <a href="http://arstechnica.com/authors.ars/iljitsch" target="_blank">Iljitsch van Beijnum</a>
| Published: January 02, 2009 - 12:31PM CT
</p>
<div>
<p>One of the first things I do every
year on the first of January is have a look at what happened with the
IP address stockpile during the previous year. We started 2008 with
1,122.85 million unused addresses left and we ended it with 925.58
million. So the world used up 197.27 million IPv4 addresses in 2008,
increasing use of the total address space from 69.7 percent a year ago
to 75.3 percent now.</p><div>
<h3><span>Related Stories</span></h3>
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<a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080925-tech-boom-means-china-will-run-out-of-ip-addresses-by-2011.html" target="_blank">Tech boom means China will run out of IP addresses by 2011</a></li><li>
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080817-were-running-out-of-ipv4-addresses-time-for-ipv6-really.html" target="_blank">We're running out of IPv4 addresses. Time for IPv6. Really.</a></li><li>
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071017-internet-census-researchers-knock-on-2-8-billion-virtual-doors.html" target="_blank">Internet census: researchers knock on 2.8 billion virtual doors</a></li><li>
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/ietf-ipv6-switchoff.ars" target="_blank">The night the IETF turned off IPv4</a></li></ul>
</div><p>The
IP address space is managed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
(IANA), which is part of ICANN, the people who normally debate the
virtues of .xxx domains. IANA maintains <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/" target="_blank">a list</a>
of 256 blocks of 16,777,216 IPv4 addresses each, identified by the
first 8-bit number in an IP address. Each of those "/8" blocks is
either delegated to a Regional Internet Registry (RIR), is unallocated
(available for future delegation), has legacy status, or is reserved
for a special use.</p><p>The table below shows the overall distribution of IPv4 addresses among the regional registrars. </p><p> </p><table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td align="center">
<b>Delegated to/status</b></td> <td align="center"><b>Blocks</b></td> <td align="center"><b>+/- 2008</b></td> <td align="center"><b>Addresses (millions)</b></td> <td align="center">
<b>Used (millions)</b></td> <td align="center"><b>Available (millions)</b></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">AfriNIC</td> <td align="center">2</td> <td align="center"> </td>
<td align="center">33.55</td> <td align="center">9.18</td> <td align="center">24.37</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">APNIC</td> <td align="center">30</td> <td align="center">+4</td>
<td align="center">503.32</td> <td align="center">454.36</td> <td align="center">48.96</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">ARIN</td> <td align="center">31</td> <td align="center">
+4</td>
<td align="center">520.09</td> <td align="center">446.06</td> <td align="center">74.03</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">LACNIC</td> <td align="center">6</td> <td align="center">
</td> <td align="center">100.66</td> <td align="center">68.88</td> <td align="center">31.78</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">RIPE NCC</td> <td align="center">26</td> <td align="center">
</td> <td align="center">436.21</td> <td align="center">423.65</td> <td align="center">12.56</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">LEGACY</td> <td align="center">92</td> <td align="center">
+1</td> <td align="center">1543.50</td> <td align="center">1363.29</td> <td align="center">180.21</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">UNALLOCATED</td> <td align="center">34</td> <td align="center">
-9</td> <td align="center">570.43</td> <td align="center"> </td> <td align="center">570.43</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center"><b>Totals</b></td> <td align="center"><b>221</b></td>
<td align="center"><b> </b></td> <td align="center"><b>3707.76</b></td> <td align="center"><b>2765.42</b></td> <td align="center"><b>942.34</b></td> </tr> </tbody></table>
<p> </p><p>APNIC
(Asia-pacific region) and ARIN (North America) both got four new /8
blocks last year—ARIN got two of those just before Christmas. LACNIC
(Latin America and Caribbean) and especially AfriNIC (Africa) still
have a lot of address space to work with, but it looks like the RIPE
NCC (Europe, Middle East, former USSR) will be receiving more address
space from IANA soon. </p><p>The block that was added to the legacy
pile is <a href="http://7.0.0.0/8" target="_blank">7.0.0.0/8</a>, which was given out to the US DoD Network
Information Center, which apparently didn't want this information to
appear in the IANA list, but it's now listed as "administered by ARIN."
(See my <a href="http://www.bgpexpert.com/addrspace2008.php" target="_blank">full report</a> for additional caveats.)</p><p>Things
get more interesting when we look at the top 15 list of largest IP
address-using countries. The US is still at the top, having 52.4
percent of all IPv4 addresses in use—which includes the vast majority
of the legacy space. However, a few years ago this was at 60 percent,
so 52 is actually an improvement. </p><p>Despite that, the US was still the largest user of <i>new</i>
IPv4 addresses in 2008 with 50.08 million addresses used. China was a
close second with 46.5 million new addresses last year, an increase of
34 percent.</p><p> </p><table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><b>Rank</b></td> <td align="center"><b>Was</b></td> <td align="center">
<b>2009-01-01 (millions)</b></td> <td align="center"><b>2008-01-01 (millions)</b></td> <td align="center"><b>Increase</b></td> <td align="center"><b>Country</b></td> </tr>
<tr> <td align="center">1</td> <td align="center"> </td> <td align="center">1458.21</td> <td align="center">1408.15</td> <td align="center">4%</td> <td align="center">United States</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">2</td> <td align="center">3</td> <td align="center">181.80</td> <td align="center">135.31</td> <td align="center">34%</td> <td align="center">China</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">3</td> <td align="center">2</td> <td align="center">151.56</td> <td align="center">141.47</td> <td align="center">7%</td> <td align="center">Japan</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">4</td> <td align="center"> </td> <td align="center">120.29</td> <td align="center">120.35</td> <td align="center">0%</td> <td align="center">Europe general</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">5</td> <td align="center"> </td> <td align="center">86.31</td> <td align="center">83.50</td> <td align="center">3%</td> <td align="center">United Kingdom</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">6</td> <td align="center">7</td> <td align="center">81.75</td> <td align="center">72.46</td> <td align="center">13%</td> <td align="center">Germany</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">7</td> <td align="center">6</td> <td align="center">74.49</td> <td align="center">73.20</td> <td align="center">2%</td> <td align="center">Canada</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">8</td> <td align="center"> </td> <td align="center">68.04</td> <td align="center">67.79</td> <td align="center">0%</td> <td align="center">France</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">9</td> <td align="center"> </td> <td align="center">66.82</td> <td align="center">58.86</td> <td align="center">14%</td> <td align="center"> Korea</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">10</td> <td align="center"> </td> <td align="center">36.26</td> <td align="center">33.43</td> <td align="center">8%</td> <td align="center">Australia</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">11</td> <td align="center">12</td> <td align="center">29.75</td> <td align="center">23.46</td> <td align="center">27%</td> <td align="center">Brazil</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">12</td> <td align="center">11</td> <td align="center">29.64</td> <td align="center">24.04</td> <td align="center">23%</td> <td align="center">Italy</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">13</td> <td align="center">16</td> <td align="center">24.01</td> <td align="center">19.83</td> <td align="center">21%</td> <td align="center">Taiwan</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">14</td> <td align="center">18</td> <td align="center">23.18</td> <td align="center">17.01</td> <td align="center">36%</td> <td align="center">Russia</td>
</tr> <tr> <td align="center">15</td> <td align="center">14</td> <td align="center">21.67</td> <td align="center">20.42</td> <td align="center">6%</td> <td align="center">Spain</td>
</tr> </tbody></table><p> </p><p>Although
China and Brazil saw huge increases in their address use, suggesting
that the developing world is demanding a bigger part of the pie while
IPv4 addresses last, what's really going on is more complex. India is
still stuck in 18th place between the Netherlands and Sweden at 18.06
million addresses—only a tenth of what China has. And Canada, the UK,
and France saw little or no increase in their numbers of addresses,
while similar countries like Germany, Korea, and Italy saw double-digit
percentage increases. </p><p>A possible explanation could be that the
big player(s) in some countries are executing a "run on the bank" and
trying to get IPv4 addresses while the getting is good, while those in
other countries are working on more NAT (Network Address Translation)
and other address conservation techniques in anticipation of the
depletion of the IPv4 address reserves a few years from now.</p><p>In both cases, adding some IPv6 to the mix would be helpful. Even though last year the number of <a href="http://www.bgpexpert.com/addrspace-ipv6.php" target="_blank">IPv6 addresses given out</a> increased by almost a factor eight over 2007, the total amount of IPv6 address space in use is just 0.027 percent.</p>
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