What is Subnetting?

Subnetting is the process of breaking down an IP network into smaller sub-networks called
"subnets." Each subnet is a non-physical description (or ID) for a physical sub-network
(usually a switched network of host containing a single router in a multi-router network).

Subnet Mask Notation

There are two forms of subnet notation, standard notation and CIDR (Classless Internet
Domain Routing) notation. Both versions of notation use a base address (or network address
) to define the starting point of the network, such as 192.168.1.0. This means that the network
begins at 192.168.1.0 and the first possible host IP address on this subnet would be
192.168.1.1.

In standard subnet mask notation, a four octet numeric value is used as with the base address,
for example 255.255.255.0. The standard mask can be calculated by creating four binary
values for each octet, and assigning the binary digit of .1. to the network potion, and
assigning the binary digit of .0. to the network potion. In the example above this value would
be 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000. In combination with the base address you have
a subnet definition, in this case the subnet in standard notation would be 192.168.1.0
255.255.255.0.

In CIDR notation, the number of 1.s in the binary version of the mask are counted from the
left, and that number is appended to the end of the base address following a slash (/). In the
example here the subnet would be listed in CIDR notation as 192.168.1.0/24.

When is Subnetting Used?

Subnets are created to limit the scope of broadcast traffic, to apply network security
measures, to separate network segments by function, and/or to assist in resolving network
congestion problems..,

A subnet is usually composed of a network router, a switch or hub, and at least one host

How can I Compute the Maximum Number of Hosts for a

Subnet Mask?

To compute the maximum number of hosts for a subnet mask, take two and raise it to the
amount of bits allocated to the subnet (count the number of 0.s in the subnet mask binary
value) and subtract two. You must subtract two from the resulting value because the first
value in the IP address range (all 0s) is reserved for the network address, and the last value in
the IP address range (all 1s) is reserved for the network broadcast address. For example, DSL
networks commonly use 8 bits for their subnets. The amount of allowable hosts for such a
DSL network could be computed by the following formula: max hosts = (2^8)-2 = 254 hosts.

As you subnet networks, the number of bits represented by the subnet mask will decrease.
You decrease the octets in order starting from the rightmost value and proceed left as you
reach a zero value. Mask values decrease by a power of two each time you split a network
into more subnets. Values are 255, 254*, 252, 248, 240, 224, 224, 192, 128. Each decrease
indicates that an additional bit has been allocated. After 128, the next bit allocated will reduce
the fourth octet to 0; and the third octet will follow same 8-number progression.

For instance, a subnet mask dotted decimal number of 255.255.255.255 indicates that no bits
have been allocated and that the maximum number of hosts is 1 (0^1=1). The subnet mask
255.255.255.128 indicates that the maximum number of hosts is 128. And the subnet mask
255.255.128.0 indicates that the maximum number of hosts is 32,786.

* 254 is not a valid number for the fourth octet because no addresses are available for hosts.
i.e. (2^1)-2 = 0.

_____________________________________

Subnetwork

Creating a subnet by dividing the host identifier

A subnetwork, or subnet, is a logically visible, distinctly addressed part of a single Internet

Protocol network. The process of subnetting is the division of a computer network into
groups of computers that have a common, designated IP address routing prefix.

Subnetting breaks a network into smaller realms that may use existing address space more
efficiently, and, when physically separated, may prevent excessive rates of Ethernet packet
collision in a larger network. The subnets may be arranged logically in a hierarchical
architecture, partitioning the organization's network address space (see also Autonomous
System) into a tree-like routing structure. Routers are used to interchange traffic between
subnetworks and constitute logical or physical borders between the subnets. They manage
traffic between subnets based on the high-order bit sequence (routing prefix) of the addresses.

A routing prefix is the sequence of leading (most-significant) bits of an IP address that

precede the portion of the address used as host identifier and, if applicable, the set of bits that
designate the subnet number. Routing prefixes are expressed in CIDR notation, which uses
the first address of a network followed by the bit-length of the prefix, separated by a slash (/)
character. For example, 192.168.1.0/24 is the prefix of the IPv4 network starting at the
given address, having 24 bits allocated for the network number, and the rest (8 bits) reserved
for host addressing. The IPv6 address specification 2001:db8::/32 is a large network for 296
hosts, having a 32-bit routing prefix.
In IPv4 networks, the routing prefix is traditionally often expressed as a subnet mask, which
is the prefix bit mask expressed in quad-dotted decimal representation. For example,
255.255.255.0 is the subnet mask for the 192.168.1.0/24 prefix.

All hosts within a subnet can be reached in one routing hop, implying that all hosts in a
subnet are connected to the same link.

A typical subnet is a physical network served by one router, for instance an Ethernet network,
possibly consisting of one or several Ethernet segments or local area networks,
interconnected by network switches and network bridges) or a Virtual Local Area Network
(VLAN). However, subnetting allows the network to be logically divided regardless of the
physical layout of a network, since it is possible to divide a physical network into several
subnets by configuring different host computers to use different routers.

While improving network performance, subnetting increases routing complexity, since each
locally connected subnet must be represented by a separate entry in the routing tables of each
connected router. However, by careful design of the network, routes to collections of more
distant subnets within the branches of a tree-hierarchy can be aggregated by single routes.
Existing subnetting functionality in routers made the introduction of Classless Inter-Domain
Routing seamless.

Subnetting an IPv4 /24 CIDR block

Network addressing

Computers and devices that are participating in a network, such as the Internet each have a
logical address. Usually this address is unique to each device and can either be dynamically
(from a network server) or statically (by an administrator) configured. An address fulfills the
functions of identifying the host and locating it on the network. It allows a device to
communicate with other devices connected to the network. The most common network
addressing scheme is Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), but its successor, IPv6 is in early
deployment stages. An IPv4 address consists of 32 bits, for human readability written in a
form consisting of four octets separated by full stops (dots), called dot-decimal notation. An
IPv6 address consists of 128 bits.
In order to facilitate routing a data packet across multiple networks, the address is divided
into two parts:

• Network prefix: A contiguous group of high-order bits that are common

among all hosts within a network.
• Host identifier: The remaining low-order bits of the address that are not
designated in the network prefix. This part specifies a particular device in
the local network.

The network prefix may be written in a form identical to that of the address itself. In IPv4,
this is called the subnet mask of the address. For example, to specify the most-significant 18
bits of an address, i.e. in binary, 11111111.11111111.11000000.00000000, one writes this
as 255.255.192.0.

An alternate form of specification of the routing prefix, is to simply count the number of bits
in the routing prefix and append that number to the address with a slash (/) separator:

• 192.168.0.0, netmask 255.255.0.0

• 192.168.0.0/16

This latter notation is used preferentially in Classless Inter-Domain Routing and is called
CIDR notation. In IPv6 this is the only acceptable form to denote routing prefixes.

The subnetting operation

The process of subnetting involves the separation of the network and subnet portion of an
address from the host identifier. This is performed by a bitwise AND operation between the
IP address and the subnet prefix or bit mask. The result yields the network address, and the
remainder is the host identifier.

The following example is based on IPv4 networking. The operation may be visualized in a
table using binary address formats.

Dot-decimal
Binary form
notation

IP address 192.168.5.130 11000000.10101000.00000101.10000010

Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000

Network
192.168.5.0 11000000.10101000.00000101.00000000
Portion

Host Portion 0.0.0.130 00000000.00000000.00000000.10000010

In IPv4, subnet masks consist of 32 bits, usually a sequence of ones (1) followed by a block
of 0s. The last block of zeros (0) designate that part as being the host identifier.

Subnetting is the process of designating bits from the host portion and grouping them with
the network portion. This divides a network into smaller subnets. The following diagram
modifies the example by moving two bits from the host portion to the subnet number to form
a smaller subnet:

Dot-decimal
Binary form
notation

IP address 192.168.5.130 11000000.10101000.00000101.10000010

Subnet Mask 255.255.255.192 11111111.11111111.11111111.11000000

Network
192.168.5.128 11000000.10101000.00000101.10000000
Portion

Host Portion 0.0.0.2 00000000.00000000.00000000.00000010

Subnetting in IPv4 networks

Internet Protocol version 4 uses specially designated address formats to facilitate recognition
of special address functionality. The first and the last subnets obtained by subnetting have
traditionally had a special designation and, early on, special usage implications.[2] In addition,
IPv4 uses the all ones host address, i.e. the last address within a network, for broadcast
transmission to all hosts on the link.

Subnet zero and the all-ones subnet

The first subnet obtained from subnetting has all bits in the subnet bit group set to zero (0). It
is therefore called subnet zero. Using subnet zero for addressing was discouraged at one point
due to the confusion created by having a network and subnet with the same address.
According to RFC 950, "It is useful to preserve and extend the interpretation of these special
(network and broadcast) addresses in subnetted networks. This means the values of all zeros
and all ones in the subnet field should not be assigned to actual (physical) subnets."

The last subnet obtained from subnetting has all bits in the subnet bit group set to one (1).
This is therefore called the all-ones subnet. Although it was always possible to use this
subnet, RFC 950 also discouraged its use due to possible confusion with the broadcast
address.

The practice of avoiding subnet zero and the all-ones subnet eventually became obsolete with
RFC 1878, published in 1995. It explicitly states: "This practice is obsolete! Modern
software will be able to utilize all definable networks."

Subnet and host counts

The number of subnetworks available, and the number of possible hosts in a network may be
readily calculated. In the example (above) two bits were borrowed to create subnetworks,
thus creating 4 (22) possible subnets.
 Broadcast
Network Network (binary)
address
192.168.5.0/2 11000000.10101000.00000101.0
192.168.5.63
6 0000000
192.168.5.64/ 11000000.10101000.00000101.0
192.168.5.127
26 1000000
192.168.5.128 11000000.10101000.00000101.1
192.168.5.191
/26 0000000
192.168.5.192 11000000.10101000.00000101.1
192.168.5.255
/26 1000000

The RFC 950 specification reserves the subnet values consisting of all zeros and all ones
(broadcast), reducing the number of available subnets by two. However, due to the
inefficiencies introduced by this convention it was abandoned for use on the public Internet,
and is only relevant when dealing with legacy equipment that does not implement CIDR. The
only reason not to use the all-zeroes subnet is that it is ambiguous when the prefix length is
not available. All CIDR-compliant routing protocols transmit both length and suffix. RFC
1878 provides a subnetting table with examples.

The remaining bits after the subnet are used for addressing hosts within the subnet. In the
above example the subnet mask consists of 26 bits, leaving 6 bits for the host identifier. This
allows for 64 combinations (26), however the all zeros value and all ones value are reserved
for the network ID and broadcast address respectively, leaving 62 addresses.

In general the number of available hosts on a subnet is 2n-2, where n is the number of bits
used for the host portion of the address.

RFC 3021 specifies an exception to this rule when dealing with 31-bit subnet masks (i.e. 1-bit
host identifiers). In such networks, usually point-to-point links, only two hosts (the end
points) may be connected and a specification of network and broadcast addresses is not
necessary.

Possible subnets within a /24 (traditional Class C) block are:

CIDR Network Available Available Hosts per Total usable

notation Mask Networks network hosts
255.255.255.
/24 1 254 254
0
255.255.255.
/25 2 126 252
128
255.255.255.
/26 4 62 248
192
255.255.255.
/27 8 30 240
224
255.255.255.
/28 16 14 224
240
255.255.255.
/29 32 6 192
248
/30 255.255.255. 64 2 128
 252
255.255.255. *
/31 128 2 256
254

* only applicable on point-to-point links

Subnetting in IPv6 networks

The IPv6 address space design differs significantly from IPv4. The primary reason for
subnetting in IPv4 was to improve efficiency in the utilization of the relatively small address
space available, particularly to enterprises. No such limitations exist in IPv6, as the address
space available even to end-users is large.

An IPv6 subnet always has 64 bits in its host portion. It therefore has a /64 routing prefix (the
64 most-significant bits). Although it is technically possible to use smaller subnets, they are
impractical for local area networks because stateless address autoconfiguration of network
interfaces (RFC 4862) requires a /64 address. IPv6 does not implement special address
formats for broadcast traffic or network numbers, and thus all addresses in a subnet are valid
host addresses.

The recommended allocation for an IPv6 customer site is an address space of 80 address bits
(prefix /48), but it may be as small as 72 bits (/56 allocation) for a residential customer
network. This provides 65,536 subnets for a site, or at least a minimum of 256 subnets for a
residential network. Subnetting in IPv6 is used to route traffic between the global allocation
spaces and within customer network between subnets and the larger Internet. Subnetting in
IPv6 is also based on the concepts of Classless Inter-Domain Routing and the standard CIDR
notation is used with IPv6 addresses.

When is subnetting necessary?

Subnetting is required when one network number needs to be distributed across multiple
LAN segments. This may be the case in instances when:

• A company uses two or more types of LAN technology (for example,

Ethernet, Token Ring) on their network.

• Two network segments are restricted by distance limitations (for example,

remote offices linked via point-to-point circuit).

• Segments need to be localized for network management reasons

(accounting segment, sales segment, etc.).

• Hosts which dominate most of the LAN bandwidth need to be isolated.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Hopefully your decision to subnet happened before your workstations were assigned IP
addresses. This will allow for much more flexibility in your segment layout. Subnetting can
provide you with easier network management capabilities and also lends itself to faster
troubleshooting. Additionally, subnetting keeps the size of the Internet's routing tables down,
since you won't be adding an additional network number for each segment.

The routing announcement of your network to the outside world will still be based on your
single network number. Keep in mind, though, that subnetting will decrease the total amount
of IP addresses available to you and may require purchasing additional hardware such as a
router. This will be covered later.

Is Subnetting Still Relevant?

The main purpose of subnetting is to help relieve network congestion. Congestion used to be
a bigger problem than it is today because it was more common for networks to use hubs than
switches. When nodes on a network are connected through a hub, the entire network acts as a
single collision domain. What this means is that if one PC sends a packet to another PC,
every PC on the entire network sees the packet. Each machine looks at the packet header, but
ignores the packet if it isn’t the intended recipient.

The problem with this type of network is that if any two machines on the network happen to
send packets simultaneously, then the packets collide and are destroyed in the collision. The
two machines then wait a random amount of time and resend the packets. The point is that an
occasional collision is no big deal, but excessive collisions can slow a network way down.

Switches solve the excessive collision problem by directing packets directly from the source
machine to the destination machine. Using this technique combined with caching practically
eliminates collisions and allows a network to perform much better than it ever could if it were
using a hub. So let’s go back to my original question. Are subnets still relevant for switched
networks?

The answer is that it really just depends on how the network is laid out and how it is
performing. Keep in mind that a switch only helps performance when a packet is destined for
a specific PC. Broadcast traffic is still sent to every machine on the network. If you’re
running a switched network, then subnetting will help you if you have a lot of broadcast
network. Subnetting is also important if you have branch offices that are connected by a slow
WAN link

The graphical subnet ruler

Over the years, as I watched people struggle with the subject of IP subnetting, I wanted a
better way to teach the subject. I soon realized that many students in IT lacked the necessary
background in mathematics and had a hard time with the concept of binary numbers. To help
close this gap, I came up with the graphical method of illustrating subnets shown in Figure
A. In this example, we're looking at a range of IP addresses from 10.0.0.0 up to 10.0.32.0.
Note that the ending IP of 10.0.32.0 itself is actually the beginning of the next subnet. This
network range ends at the number right before it, which is 10.0.31.255.

Figure A

Note that for every bit increase, the size of the subnet doubles in length, along with the
number of hosts. The smallest tick mark represents 8 bits, which contains a subnet with 256
hosts--but since you can't use the first and last IP addresses, there are actually only 254 usable
hosts on the network. The easiest way to compute how many usable hosts are in a subnet is to
raise 2 to the power of the bit size minus 2. Go up to 9 bits ,and we're up to 510 usable hosts,
because 2 to the 9th is 512, and we don't count the beginning and ending. Keep on going all
the way up to 13 bits, and we're up to 8,190 usable hosts for the entire ruler shown above.

Learning to properly chop subnets

Subnets can be subdivided into smaller subnets and even smaller ones still. The most
important thing to know about chopping up a network is that you can't arbitrarily pick the
beginning and ending. The chopping must be along clean binary divisions. The best way to
learn this is to look at my subnet ruler and see what's a valid subnet. In Figure B, green
subnets are valid and red subnets are not.

Figure B

The ruler was constructed like any other ruler, where we mark it down the middle and bisect
it. Then, we bisect the remaining sections and with shrinking markers every time we start a
new round of bisecting. In the sample above, there were five rounds of bisections. If you look
carefully at the edge of any valid (green) subnet blocks, you'll notice that none of the markers
contained within the subnet is higher than the edge's markers. There is a mathematical reason
for this, which we'll illustrate later, but seeing it graphically will make the math easier to
understand.

The role of the subnet mask

The subnet mask plays a crucial role in defining the size of a subnet. Take a look at Figure
C. Notice the pattern and pay special attention to the numbers in red. Whenever you're
dealing with subnets, it will come in handy to remember eight special numbers that reoccur
when dealing with subnet masks. They are 255, 254, 252, 248, 240, 224, 192, and 128. You'll
see these numbers over and over again in IP networking, and memorizing them will make
your life much easier.
I've included three class sizes. You'll see the first two classes, with host bit length from 0 to
16, most often. It's common for DSL and T1 IP blocks to be in the 0- to 8-bit range. Private
networks typically work in the 8- to 24-bit range.

Note how the binary mask has all those zeros growing from right to left. The subnet mask in
binary form always has all ones to the left and all zeros to the right. The number of zeros is
identical to the subnet length. I showed only the portion of the binary subnet in the octet that's
interesting, since all octets to the right consist of zeros and all octets to the left consist of
ones. So if we look at the subnet mask where the subnet length is 11 bits long, the full binary
subnet mask is 11111111.11111111.11111000.00000000. As you can see under mask octet,
the subnet mask transitions from 1 to 0 in the third octet. The particular binary subnet mask
translates directly to base-256 form as 255.255.248.0.
The "mask" in subnet mask

The subnet mask not only determines the size of a subnet, but it can also help you pinpoint
where the end points on the subnet are if you're given any IP address within that subnet. The
reason it's called a subnet "mask" is that it literally masks out the host bits and leaves only the
Network ID that begins the subnet. Once you know the beginning of the subnet and how big
it is, you can determine the end of the subnet, which is the Broadcast ID.

To calculate the Network ID, you simply take any IP address within that subnet and run the
AND operator on the subnet mask. Let's take an IP address of 10.20.237.15 and a subnet
mask of 255.255.248.0. Note that this can be and often is written in shorthand as
10.20.237.15/21 because the subnet mask length is 21. Figure D and Figure E show the
Decimal and Binary versions of the AND operation.

Figure D

Decimal math

Figure E

Binary math

The binary version shows how the 0s act as a mask on the IP address on top. Inside the
masking box, the 0s convert all numbers on top into zeros, no matter what the number is.
When you take the resultant binary Network ID and convert it to decimal, you get
10.20.232.0 as the Network ID.

One thing that's always bothered me about the way subnetting is taught is that students are
not shown a simple trick to bypass the need for binary conversions when doing AND
operations. I even see IT people in the field using this slow and cumbersome technique to
convert everything to binary, run the AND operation, and then convert back to decimal using
the Windows Calculator. But there's a really simple shortcut using the Windows Calculator,
since the AND operator works directly on decimal numbers. Simply punch in 237, hit the
AND operator, and then 248 and [Enter] to instantly get 232, as shown in Figure F. I'll never
understand why this isn't explained to students, because it makes mask calculations a lot
easier.

Figure F
Since there are 11 zeros in the subnet mask, the subnet is 11 bits long. This means there are
2^11, or 2,048, maximum hosts in the subnet and the last IP in this subnet is 10.20.239.255.
You could compute this quickly by seeing there are three zeros in the third octet, which
means the third octet of the IP address can have a variance of 2^3, or 8. So the next subnet
starts at 10.20.232+8.0, which is 10.20.240.0. If we decrease that by 1, we have
10.20.239.255, which is where this subnet ends. To help you visualize this, Figure G shows
it on my subnet ruler.

Figure G

IP classes made simple

For an arbitrary classification of IP subnets, the creators of the Internet chose to break the
Internet into multiple classes. Note that these aren't important as far as your subnet
calculations are concerned; this is just how the Internet is "laid out." The Internet is laid out
as Class A, B, C, D, and E. Class A uses up the first half of the entire Internet, Class B uses
half of the remaining half, Class C uses the remaining half again, Class D (Multicasting) uses
up the remaining half again, and whatever is left over is reserved for Class E. I've had
students tell me that they struggled with the memorization of IP classes for weeks until they
saw this simple table shown in Figure H. This is because you don't actually need to
memorize anything, you just learn the technique for constructing the ruler using half of what's
available.

Figure H
Remember that all subnets start with EVEN numbers and all subnet endings are ODD. Note
that 0.0.0.0/8 (0.0.0.0 to 0.255.255.255) isn't used and 127.0.0.0/8 (127.0.0.0 to
127.255.255.255) is reserved for loopback addresses.

All Class A addresses have their first octet between 1 to 126 because 0 and 127 are reserved.
Class A subnets are all 24 bits long, which means the subnet mask is only 8 bits long. For
example, we have the entire 3.0.0.0/8 subnet owned by GE, since GE was lucky enough to
get in early to be assigned 16.8 million addresses. The U.S. Army owns 6.0.0.0/8. Level 3
Communications owns 8.0.0.0/8. IBM owns 9.0.0.0/8. AT&T owns 12.0.0.0/8. Xerox owns
13.0.0.0/8. HP owns 15.0.0.0/8 and 16.0.0.0/8. Apple owns 17.0.0.0/8.

All Class B addresses have their first octet between 128 and 191. Class B subnets are all 16
bits long, which means the subnet masks are 16 bits long. For example, BBN
Communications owns 128.1.0.0/16, which is 128.1.0.0 to 128.1.255.255. Carnegie Mellon
University owns 128.2.0.0/16.

All Class C addresses have their first octet between 192 and 223. Class C subnets are all 8
bits long, so the subnet mask is only 24 bits long. Note that ARIN (the organization that
assigns Internet addresses) will sell blocks of four Class C addresses only to individual
companies and you have to really justify why you need 1,024 Public IP addresses. If you
need to run BGP so you can use multiple ISPs for redundancy, you have to have your own
block of IP addresses. Also note that this isn't the old days, where blocks of 16.8 million
Class A addresses were handed out for basically nothing. You have to pay an annual fee for
your block of 1,024 addresses with a subnet mask of /22, or 255.255.252.0.

The concept of subnet classes can cause harm in actual practice. I've actually seen people
forget to turn classes off in their old Cisco router and watch large subnet routes get hijacked
on a large WAN configured for dynamic routing whenever some routes were added. This is
because a Cisco router will assume the subnet mask is the full /8 or /16 or /24 even if you
define something in between. All newer Cisco IOS software versions turn off the concept of
subnet classes and uses classless routing by default. This is done with the default command
"IP Classless."

Public versus private IP addresses

Besides the reserved IP addresses (0.0.0.0/8 and 127.0.0.0/8) mentioned above, there are
other addresses not used on the public Internet. These private subnets consist of private IP
addresses and are usually behind a firewall or router that performs NAT (network address
translation). NAT is needed because private IP addresses are nonroutable on the public
Internet, so they must be translated into public IP addresses before they touch the Internet.
Private IPs are never routed because no one really owns them. And since anyone can use
them, there's no right place to point a private IP address to on the public Internet. Private IP
addresses are used in most LAN and WAN environments, unless you're lucky enough to own
a Class A or at least a Class B block of addresses, in which case you might have enough IPs
to assign internal and external IP addresses.

The following blocks of IP addresses are allocated for private networks:

• 10.0.0.0/8 (10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255)

• 172.16.0.0/12 (172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255)
• 192.168.0.0/16 (192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255)
• 169.254.0.0/16 (169.254.0.0 to 169.254.255.255)*

*Note that 169.254.0.0/16 is a block of private IP addresses used for random self IP
assignment where DHCP servers are not available.

10.0.0.0/8 is normally used for larger networks, since there are approximately 16.8 million IP
addresses available within that block. They chop it up into lots of smaller groups of subnets
for each geographic location, which are then subdivided into even smaller subnets. Smaller
companies typically use the 172.16.0.0/12 range, chopped up into smaller subnets, although
there's no reason they can't use 10.0.0.0/8 if they want to. Home networks typically use a /24
subnet within the 192.168.0.0/16 subnet.

The use of private IP addresses and NAT has prolonged the life of IPv4 for the foreseeable
future because it effectively allows a single public IP address to represent thousands of
private IP addresses. At the current rate that IPv4 addresses are handed out, we have enough
IPv4 addresses for approximately 17 years. ARIN is much more stingy now about handing
them out, and small blocks of IP addresses are relatively expensive compared to the old days,
when companies like Apple were simply handed a block of 16.8 million addresses. The next
version of IP addresses, called IPv6, is 128 bits long--and there are more than 79 thousand
trillion trillion times more IP addresses than IPv4. Even if you assigned 4.3 billion people on
the planet with 4.3 billion IP addresses each, you would still have more than 18 million
trillion IPv6 addresses left!