This won't mean that suddenly no user can get a new IPv4 address, Vegoda noted. In addition to the remaining numbers held by the RIRs, there are some addresses left in older blocks assigned before the RIRs were established, which the RIRs have split up among themselves. But given the fast adoption of new addresses in some parts of the world, those resources might be used up soon.

For example, , according to data on the organization's website. On Jan. 12, APNIC's free addresses added up to 2.26 of the large /8 blocks. On Tuesday, the latest day for which the agency has statistics, the remaining addresses totaled only 1.4 blocks, or approximately 22.4 million addresses.

The rate of requests to RIRs for addresses is probably speeding up partly because applicants are worried that IPv4 addresses will run out, Vegoda said.

"I'm sure that some of these ISPs brought forward deployment plans that they were looking at doing later in the year and thought, 'If we don't get addresses now, we won't be able to do this particular deployment,'" Vegoda said. "They would be inhuman if they had done something different."

However, he said he was confident that everyone requesting the addresses would use them. Some observers have expressed fear that .