The central pool of net addresses is down to its last 5 'blocks' of IPv4 addresses, with stocks estimated to run out this Autumn.

According to the BBC, the organisation that takes care of net addresses in the Asia Pacific region, APNic, has put in a request for another batch of addresses as it has almost run out of its current stock of IPv4 addresses. When these have been dished out, there will apparently only be 5 blocks left, composed of 16 million addresses each.

It is widely predicted that the remaining stock of IPv4 addresses will run out in Autumn, although 'godfather of the net' Vint Cerf has warned it could be as soon as late Spring.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) reportedly confirmed the number of remaining blocks and said they will be shared out pronto between regional agencies.

According to the Beeb, a ceremony celebrating the handing over of the final blocks of addresses, known as /8s, will happen later next month.

IPv4 has not had a bad innings as its 4.3bn addresses were apparently drawn up in the 1970s, but due to the rapid growth of the net, they will almost certainly all be used up this year.

The replacement IPv6 scheme will make trillions of new addresses available but there are fears that a move towards wide spread adoption is progressing very slowly.

Axel, Pawlink, MD of Ripe, which takes care of net addressees in Europe told the Beeb: "The future growth and innovation of the internet is now reliant on deployment of IPv6. It is now more vital than ever that ISPs, organisations, governments and all other internet stakeholders begin to deploy IPv6