Dear APNIC Members,

Most of you will be aware that the central pool of IPv4 addresses held by IANA is nearly exhausted. After the latest allocations to ARIN and RIPE NCC, there are only seven /8 blocks remaining for allocation to the RIRs. Of these blocks, two will soon be allocated according to the current request process, then the remaining five will be distributed equally among the five RIRs.

There has been much speculation recently over the timing of IPv4 address exhaustion, both at IANA and within the RIRs' own address pools.

We are proud that the work of APNIC's Chief Scientist, Geoff Huston, has made such an important contribution to those discussions, and we would like to highlight his recent comments regarding this work:

Potaroo

The APNIC EC notes, as Geoff himself has stated, that as we have approached the end of the IPv4 pool, IPv4 allocations have become less predictable, and projections of IPv4 address exhaustion have been highly variable. These variations have shown that no method of numerical projection, no matter how thorough, can actually predict the future, and all projections need to be interpreted accordingly.

What is clear to the APNIC EC, and we hope to all APNIC Members, is that the global IPv4 address pools will be fully consumed in the very near future; in the case of APNIC, probably by the final quarter of 2011. After that event, IPv4 address allocations will be strictly limited, to one small allocation, of /22, to existing and new Members.

We hope that APNIC Members are very well informed of these developments, and very well prepared in terms of business planning, staff training, and customer communications.

While there are various means by which to extend Internet services after IPv4 addresses are exhausted, it is clear that IPv6 is the only long-term solution. As you should be aware, APNIC's current policies ensure that IPv6 addresses are readily and easily accessible to network operators, and we are seeing rapid acceleration in IPv6 allocations in this region.

For some years, APNIC has been working actively to promote and support the adoption of IPv6. We will certainly continue this work during 2011 and beyond, towards a smooth penetration of IPv6 over our region and even over the global Internet.

With best regards,

MAEMURA Akinori

Chair
APNIC Executive Council