IPv4 addresses fall below 5 percent. Is it time for IPv6 yet?

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The Number Resource Organization (NRO) announced today the less than 5 percent of the IPv4 address space now remains.

So what?

We’ve been hearing about IPv4 address space depletion for years and various organizations have kept trying to predict the year we’d ‘run out’ of address spaces. The reality is that year after year IPv4 has continued to stay alive – even as pundits proclaim its death. The fact that less than 5 percent of IPv4 address remain is not a cause for U.S. based enterprises or consumers to be concerned – the Internet is not running out of IP addresses as some mainstream media might proclaim – you can go about your business as usual.

For service providers, it’s another story. The big carriers have had IPv6 pilots for a few years and as more mobile devices are deployed the need for IPv6 on those devices will become a major issue.

In my view however, IPv6 – at least for the next three to five years will be important as a bridging band-aid technology. IPv4 sites and services aren’t going away anytime soon and the vast majority of the Internet will remain on IPv4 for at least the next 10 years in my opinion.