IPv6 and IoT: Why Running Out of Addresses Was a Real Crisis
In the 1970s, a small group of engineers designing the internet made a decision that seemed absurdly generous at the time. They gave the network 4.3 billion addresses. Four billion. For a research project connecting a few dozen universities, that was infinity. Nobody in that room imagined a world where a single household would burn through forty of them — a phone, a laptop, a TV, a thermostat, a doorbell, a dozen bulbs, a watch, a speaker in every room. That world arrived. And when it did, the internet quietly ran out of room. 🌐 The Short Version IPv4 's 32-bit address space gives 4.3 billion unique identifiers. The central pool ran out in February 2011. Regional registries fell one after another: Asia-Pacific in April 2011, Europe in September 2012, Latin America in 2014, North America in September 2015. No fresh addresses left. The market responded the way markets do when something runs scarce: IPv4 addresses became an asset class. A single address that traded for ~$5 ...
