The stockpile of unused IPv4 addresses in North America has fallen so low that there’s now a waiting list.

On Wednesday, for the first time, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) had to tell an applicant for new Internet addresses to wait. ARIN simply didn’t have any blocks of addresses big enough to satisfy that applicant’s needs.

This day has been coming for some time, according to ARIN President and CEO John Curran. It’s a step on the path toward total depletion of Internet Protocol Version 4 addresses, the type that most devices on the Internet still use. IPv4 only has about 4.3 billion addresses, and the so-called “free pools” administered by official Internet registries like ARIN are close to running out.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here