How was the last IPv4 address in Europe assigned?

byChristoph Scholz

Distribute IP addresses mainly in Europe, Middle East, Central AsiaRIPE NCC, Manage IP addresses, etc.Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)IPv4 address assigned fromAnnounced. The RIPE NCC thanks the IPv4 address and looks back on how the IP address was assigned.

So Long Last / 8 and Thanks For All the Allocations - RIPE Labs
https://labs.ripe.net/Members/wilhelm/so-long-last-8-and-thanks-for-all-the-allocations

Since the RIPE NCC distributed the last IPv4 address (185.0.0.0/8) allocated from IANA on April 17, 2018, in the future it will be allocated the IPv4 address recovered by the RIPE NCC after abandonment by the user at the same time,IPv6 addressWe are going to move on to the transition to. It is estimated that the remaining IPv4 address held by RIPE NCC will be about 9 million, and until about 2020 it will be assumed that allocation of collected IPv4 addresses will continue.

When the last IPv4 address was allocated from IANA in February 2011, the RIPE NCC possessed a total of 75 million IPv4 addresses. It means that it was allotted in a little over 7 years.

The graph below shows the monthly distribution number of the last remaining IPv4 address (185.0.0.0 / 8) and the total distribution number. After a large number of IPv4 addresses are distributed immediately after the distribution starts, although the distribution trend has been decreasing for about one year, it can be seen that the distribution number is increasing gradually.


RIPE NCC gradually advances the transition from the IPv4 address to the IPv6 address but in order not to exhaust the IPv4 address during the transition, measures to prevent a small number of organizations from consuming a large number of IPv4 addresses I took it. "RIPE NCC says that IPv4 addresses will be needed for a while before the Internet can operate on IPv6 address platforms," ​​RIPE NCC said, considering that IPv4 addresses can be distributed to new Internet entrants I am doing it.

RIPE NCC says the work to advance the transition from the IPv4 address to the IPv6 address is difficult and the work is not going so well. RIPE NCCLocal Internet registry (LIR)We allocated IPv6 address to underlying organization which allocates IP address called IP address, and prepared IPv4 address for transition to IPv6 address, but most LIRs only obtain IPv4 address distributed with set of IPv6 address I was interested and did not do anything with the IPv6 address distributed by RIPE NCC.

The following image shows the distribution of which country companies have obtained the last IPv4 address (185.0.0.0 / 8). Countries with many LIRs such as Russia, the United Kingdom, France possess many last-lasted IPv4 addresses (185.0.0.0 / 8), while in Portugal and Belgium the last IPv4 address (185.0.0.0 / 8) are few in number.


Today, due to RIPE NCC's work, the transition from IPv4 address to IPv6 address is steadily progressing. Looking at the following image, you can see that the number of transitions to IPv6 addresses has been increasing since 2017, while repeating increment / decrement.

The remaining IPv4 addresses retained by the RIPE NCC are approximately 4 million packets that IANA has collected and reassigned to the IP address distribution organization including RIPE NCC and about 4 million packets that the RIPE NCC itself collected It is about 9 million pieces together. RIPE NCC will continue collecting IPv4 addresses so that IPv4 addresses are not cut off until the transition to the IPv6 address is completed.