2011/03/05

Reclaim Class E address

There have been suggestions to reclaim the Class E address for Internet use as a way to  alleviate the problem of IPv4 address exhaustion.  Class E is in the range 240.0.0.0 to 254.255.255.254 and is reserved for experimental use.  The number of available IP address is 268 million.

The suggestions can not be considered because almost all routers, firewalls and operating systems treat Class E as invalid addresses.  It is not possible to change billion devices already in use now.  Besides, the address range can only support global allocation for about 18 months. Why should people change every single device just for the sake of 18 months and why not move to IPv6 directly which can last for 50 - 100 years ! 

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