Oops

We've been hearing for ten years now that we're running out of Internet addresses.  As with anything we hear for ten years, we've discounted this as scaremongering from a credulous media.  Oops:

The provider of IP addresses to the Asia Pacific region has activated a major change in the way it allocates them after becoming the first registry to deplete its number of older addresses to fewer than 17 million.

APNIC said the depletion of all but its final /8 block of addresses was a “key turning point in IPv4 exhaustion” meant that it was no longer able to meet current demand for the older addresses. As a result, the registry has immediately instituted a draconian rationing plan that will limit both the number of IPs issued and the organizations that are eligible to receive them.

Asia/Pacific (APAC) has been more aggressive in pushing the new IPv6 addresses, so it's not surprising that they've been the first to run out of addresses.  But the end is coming for the rest of us.

What will be interesting to see is whether IPv4 (Old School Internet) from your cable modem, combined with Network Address Translation (NAT) to IPv6 (New School Internet) will let us ignore what's going on.  My guess is that Skype users will be the first to know ...