From slashdot:
For those of you keeping score,
ICANN just allocated another four /8 IPv4 blocks; 23/8 and 100/8 to ARIN, 5/8 and 37/8 to RIPE, leaving just seven /8s unassigned. In effect however, this means that there are now just two /8s available before the entire pool will be assigned due to an arrangement whereby the five Regional Internet Registries would each automatically receive one of the final five /8s once that threshold was met. The
IPv4 Address Report counter at Potaroo.net is pending an update and still saying 96 days, but it's now starting to look doubtful that we're going to even make it to January.
While less politically divisive, this is ultimately even a bigger issue for the future of the Internet than Net Neutrality is. ISPs, consumer software manufacturers, and regulatory bodies have absolutely dropped the ball on this despite having recognized the need for at least 20 years. It's particularly problematic as more and more mobile devices access the Internet.
Congress spent a lot more energy "solving" the non-existent "problem" of analog TV signals than they have on this: if there had just been a mandate that all large ISPs convert to IPV6 5 years ago we wouldn't be having this conversation (and actually the FCC could have done that by administrative order, since they technically run the Internet). Maybe it's jingoism, but it really irks me that India and China are surpassing us in IP6 usage.
On edit, for those not in geek mode today: we're about to run out of the addresses computers use to find each other on the Internet. Or at least we're about to run out of large contiguous blocks of them that are assigned to ISPs and large networks. This means it's going to start to be a lot more expensive to host a web or mail server because there will be a fixed supply of addresses for them and constantly increasing demand.
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