List of Assigned IPv4 IP Address Blocks

en.wikipedia.org

2 pointsry0ohki3 comments

I just found this super interesting that corporations (General Electric, Apple, Merck, etc...) own entire 16 million address blocks.

Seems like we could easily reallocate half of IPv4 by getting these corporations to sell/give up most of their blocks.

In the early days of the Internet, the idea was that you'd get one block of IP addresses ever and it would last you forever, so companies were given class A blocks under the assumption that they would probably eventually need more than a class B.

I suspect these companies will sell off these addresses if there are ever enough buyers to take them. Right now I don't think there's anyone who needs ~$160M worth of addresses.

This is basically true. I can remember in the early '80s filling out the ARIN address block request for my then employer and thinking "I've got a couple of hundred end points now, so I'll just ask for a Class B so I won't have to worry about it again". They gave it to me. We never used more than 1000 IPs. At least part of that company eventually became some sort of low-rent hosting company, so maybe they're using more, but I doubt it.

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