The Central IPv4 Address Pool is Now Depleted

02/02/2011

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has handed over to LACNIC the last IPv4 address block in its central pool available for the region of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Raúl Echeberría, Executive Director of LACNIC and current NRO Chair, symbolically received the address block corresponding to Latin America and the Caribbean during a ceremony that took place on February 3 at the Intercontinental Hotel Miami, USA. During that ceremony, the final five available IPv4 address blocks were simultaneously handed over, one to each of the five Regional Internet Registries – AFRINIC (Africa), APNIC (Asia-Pacific), ARIN (North America) LACNIC (Latin America and the Caribbean) and RIPE NCC (Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia).

The remaining IPv4 address space was equally distributed in accordance with a Global Policy approved by the communities of every region and ratified by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in March, 2009.

Raúl Echeberría described the moment as one of the “most significant moments in the history of the Internet”.

Dozens of representatives from ICANN, IANA and the five Regional Internet Registries (RIR) as well as leaders of major Internet organizations at global level participated in the ceremony.