IP address management

Anything connected to the Internet needs, at some point, to pick up a globa lly unique address to identify it among everything else on the Internet. In the case of today's Internet, these addresses are Internet protocol versio n 4 (IP nu4) addresses and they are limited in number. Responsibility for m anagement of this limited resource is delegated from a global level through regional organisations and ultimately to individual Internet service provi ders. In order to gain maximum use out of the available number of addresses against the background of explosive growth in the size of the Internet, th is valuable resource has to be carefully managed to ensure that there is en ough to go round. This paper discusses what IP addresses are, the global or ganisations used to manage IP addresses, and how BT manages its IP addresse s.