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IPv4 address exhaustion timeline. IPv4 address exhaustion is the depletion of the pool of unallocated IPv4 addresses.Because the original Internet architecture had fewer than 4.3 billion addresses available, depletion has been anticipated since the late 1980s when the Internet started experiencing dramatic growth.
IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses which limits the address space to 4 294 967 296 (2 32) addresses. IPv4 reserves special address blocks for private networks (2 24 + 2 20 + 2 16 ≈ 18 million addresses) and multicast addresses (2 28 ≈ 268 million addresses).
An IPv4 address has a size of 32 bits, which limits the address space to 4 294 967 296 (2 32) addresses. Of this number, some addresses are reserved for special purposes such as private networks (≈18 million addresses) and multicast addressing (≈270 million addresses). IPv4 addresses are usually represented in dot-decimal notation ...
There are two primary types of IP addresses in use today: IP version 4 (IPv4) and IP version 6 (IPv6). The former has been around since January 1983 , and is still the most common.
The original list of IPv4 address blocks was published in September 1981. [3] In previous versions of the document, [18] [19] network numbers were 8-bit numbers rather than the 32-bit numbers used in IPv4. At that time, three networks were added that were not listed earlier: 42.rrr.rrr.rrr, 43.rrr.rrr.rrr, and 44.rrr.rrr.rrr.
While IPv4 allows for a theoretical maximum of 2 32 addresses (approximately 4.3 billion), the number available for public use is smaller due to reserved blocks for private and special purposes. [ 2 ]
Special address blocks Address block (CIDR) First address Last address Number of addresses Usage Purpose ::/128 :: :: 1 Software Unspecified address
At the top level, the IP address pool is managed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The total IPv4 address pool contains 4 294 967 296 (2 32) addresses, while the size of the IPv6 address pool is 2 128 (340 282 366 920 938 463 463 374 607 431 768 211 456) addresses. [1]