ICANN is reported to have found a little breathing room in the IPv4 address space with its recovery of a block of 16 million IPv4 addresses. The IP addresses recovered were once used to connect older protocol packet-data networks with the fledgling Internet. The block of addresses, technically referred to as 14.0.0.0/8, is also known as Net-14.

"Net-14 was the easiest network to reclaim, the so-called low hanging fruit," said Barbara Roseman, General Manager with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which is operated by ICANN. "None of the other legacy assignments in the IPv4 space are likely to be completely reclaimed as they are all in active use."

"The recovery of these addresses offers some breathing room as the four billion addresses in IPv4 space are depleted—but it is only a temporary solution," added Roseman. "The real and lasting solution is the technical move to IPv6—the protocol that will make 340 trillion trillion trillion unique IP addresses available."

Read full story: ICANN

See related topics: DNS, IP Addressing, IPv6

Get CircleID's weekly roundup of postings:

 Master feed (more feeds)    Follow on Twitter    On your mobile