Where Did All The IPs Go?

IPv6 is on its way. We are, so we keep getting told, running out of IPv4 range of addresses and my thought whenever I see these headlines are to wonder where have all the IPv4 range gone to?

Well, I spent yesterday with my teenager wandering around one of the venerable UK institutions known as a university. Ostensibly it was an Open Day allowing him a peek into how the place operates and a chance to chat with potential future tutors.

As part of the day, departments were offering tours of their sections. So we took up a tour of the Physics lab and I noted that every computer there had its IP dymo labelled on to the monitor. And every single one of them was a public IP. That’s right, it would seem this UK University sticks its lab PCs directly onto the Internet.

[tags]university, IP[/tags]