HELLO & WELCOME

[WelshPaul]

As we all know, IPv4 addresses are in short supply and are going to be replaced by IPv6 soon. IPv4 addresses are 32-bits long, the Ethernet MAC address is 48-bits in length (That means that there are 281.5 trillion possible MAC addresses), sounds a lot right? But now we have them on our TV's, mobile phones, games consoles, tablets etc...

what happens when we run out of them?

[SteveAtVoIP2Go]

This reminds me of the Linksys PAP2's on eBay. Many of them have the same MAC addresses, but as long as they are not used within the same local network I don't think there will ever be a conflict.

I know of one company in the US that bought 200 PAP2's and they all had the same MAC address

[pwarbi]

Would there not be something put I'm place to make sure that there isn't a shortage of these in the future? I'd have thought that there would be a contingency plan, because they would have known right from day one that eventually they would run out and have to use alternative methods?

[Sunflogun]

Good question, but in the same way that IPv4 will be replaced by IPv6, I am pretty sure that when mac addresses are exhausted a reliable alternative will appear.

[pwarbi]

I'd certainly think that it's an issue that they will have thought of, there doesn't seem to be much point in launching a service knowing that's it's got limited capabilities and when the resources have been used up, that will be the end of it.

[Yosh]

Good question, but in the same way that IPv4 will be replaced by IPv6, I am pretty sure that when mac addresses are exhausted a reliable alternative will appear.

I think, that in the event they are all used up, and if there's nothing in place to prevent conflict, that this is the most likely result. Having said that, I'd say it would be easier to put something in place to prevent conflicts in the first place.

[pwarbi]

I'm sure there will be somthing in the pipeline, so if this scenario is going to affect you, I wouldn't start panicking just yet anyway, put it that way.

If the worst comes to the worst though and that doeas happen, I think there will be a few fingers being pointed and questions raised that will need to be answered.