I can remember going to a presentation by Jon Postel where he said that
he couldn't ever see a reason why more than 32 bit IP addresses would
ever
be needed.


And in fact, it transpires that they aren't...as NAT has released HUGE
blocks of addresses from large companies back to RIPE at al..

However, that brings a host (!) of issues of its own, with the NAT breaking
end-to-end connectivity. NAT is an OK stopgap but makes some things
difficult and others impossible.

IPv6 will restore end-to-end connectivity, with everyone able to use as many
routable addresses as they need. I just wish we'd get on with it a bit
quicker.

--
Ron ( Natively IPv6 enabled here ).