UK's 'Unallocated' IPv4 Block Actually In Use, Not For Sale

jimboh2k writes "The UK may have 16.9 million 'unused' IPv4 addresses but according to the department that owns them, they're not for sale. The Department of Work and Pensions says it would be too expensive to reallocate those addresses and, even if it did, it would not stave off IPv4 address exhaustion by much." The addresses in question are being used for a new internal government network. Of course, why that project wasn't built using IPv6...

Re:"new internal government network"

[Anonymous Coward]

Government workers are completely and totally incompetent.

FTFY

What's in it for them

[Maximum Prophet]

The UK may have 16.9 million 'unused' IPv4 addresses but according to the department that owns them, they're not for sale.

Of course they're not for sale, no one in the department would get any benefit from selling them, and it would be more work if they did. Once the lobbyists get wind of this, someone higher up will get a campaign donation, and the block could be sold.

Re:Let the home office keep them

[ifrag]

One does not simply "file" a report in the UK.

...report to be filed, signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.