Either by choice or otherwise, the big ISPs will soon have to stop giving each customer an IPv4 address of his or her own. Giving those customers just IPv6 is not an option, as the majority of the services are still IPv4-only and many IP-capable devices that don't run a full operating system (smartphones, VoIP phones, webcams) don't support IPv6. So that means stretching the existing IPv4 addresses in some way through "carrier grade NAT" (CGN).
But won't existing IPv4 users be sitting pretty? Maybe, maybe not. Some ISPs may take away addresses from existing users to provide their CGNs with enough addresses. Client-server applications such as the Web and e-mail will work just fine through CGNs and IPv6-to-IPv4 translators, but peer-to-peer applications such as VoIP and BitTorrent, not so much. Maybe the ISPs will care about that, maybe not. Even those of us who still have unencumbered IPv4 addresses at that point will start feeling the pain, as more and more of the peers we want to talk to are sitting behind largely impenetrable CGNs.
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