2. IPv4 address exhaustion

2.1 Context

The shortage of public IPv4 addresses is indisputable. At the end of January 2011, the last IPv4 address blocks held by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which manages the IP address space, were handed over to the 5 regional registries (AFRINIC "African Network Information Centre", APNIC "Asia Pacific Network Information Centre", ARIN "American Registry for Internet Numbers", LACNIC "Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry", RIPE-NCC "Réseaux Internet Protocol Européens – Network Coordination Centre").

The regional registries will then have a stock of addresses that will enable them to meet incoming requests for a limited period. Depending on the allocation policies adopted by these regional registries, this duration...