Europe running out of old Internet addresses

Applicants will only get about 1,000 internet addresses

The internet firms in Europe can make only one more application for old IP addresses known as IPv4 as the Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) has begun rationing of old internet addresses.

According to the reports about all of the old-style Internet addresses in Europe have been already used, which is leading RIPE to lay strict rules rationing the number of applications firms can submit for the remaining addresses.

RIPE NCC managing director Axel Pawlik said applicants will only get about 1,000 addresses and that's it and they only get them once and that's the end of it.

"They are complicated, potentially unstable and expensive," Pawlik said.

"The other route they could go is to v6 as it's in most of the net equipment now."

The currently used IP Version 4 (IPv4) addressing system was limited to about 4.3 billion internet protocol addresses following its launch in the 1970s, while now, there were only 16 million IPv4 addresses.

Due to shortage of addresses the agency is planning to limit firms to an additional application for IPv4 addresses, with a maximum capacity of 1,024 per a successful effort.

Currently the agency is planning to move to a new scheme, called IP Version 6 (IPv6), which is claimed to have an inexhaustible supply of addresses.

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