Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/05/22/iana_starts_handing_out_recovered_ipv4_addresses/

IANA starts handing out recovered IPv4 addresses

NICs take begging bowls to beadle

By Richard Chirgwin

Posted in Networks, 22nd May 2014 01:03 GMT

As IPv4 address-exhaustion shambles ever closer, IANA has begun handing out recovered addresses.

It's not going to save the world from implementing IPv6 – carrier-grade NAT is more likely to give service providers more breathing space than a few million addresses that turned up down the back of the lounge.

The distribution of recovered addresses was triggered by LACNIC (Latin America's Network Information Centre, which also covers the Caribbean) reaching its final block of /9 with just 8,388,606 addresses remaining. As its announcement states, this triggers a tightening of the handout rules in that region.

That brings into effect IANA's recovered address policy.

In the Asia Pacific, APNIC followed up the IANA and LACNIC announcements with its own, saying it has just received a /11 – a little over two million addresses – from IANA and expects small distributions every six months.

From the announcement: “APNIC will implement procedures for distribution of space from this new allocation of addresses. APNIC Members will be eligible to receive up to a /22 from this pool, in addition to the /22 that they can receive under the 'last /8' rationing policy. This gives new or existing APNIC Members up to 2,048 IPv4 addresses from these address blocks, while the space is available.”

In Europe, RIPE has also received its /11 from the recovered address pool.

NICs are continuing their calls for members to turn their investments towards implementing IPv6 rather than hanging onto v4 for grim life.

The “recovered address pool” refers to IPv4 addresses that have either been returned from old allocations that organisations never used, or fragments of the address space left over in the IANA. ®