@home out of IP addresses?

[Joshua Allen]

So I was all excited about getting cable internet. However three days
after the first service call to connect me, I'm told that @home doesn't
have anymore IP addresses to give me. The tech guy said that they have
to buy another block of them.

This sounds a little strange. I would have thought they would have seen
the IP addresses running short a mile away. And who are they buying them
from anyway?

[josh]

[Joshua Allen]

"Hadean Dragon" wrote
>It sounds very strange to me too - especially considering the fact that ...
>a friend of mine has been using (jumping around) many different unused IP
>numbers in the Peterborough area... To be blunt about it: That tech guy is
>lying to you. Just go ahead and ping an IP, and if there's no reply, hijack
>it (if you know how) and leave your computer on for a few days - if you
>never get the collision error message (that two people are using the same
>IP) during that time (and get kicked off of @home), then it's not in use.

Well, that certainly gives me some ideas as to the possibilites out their.
I'll definitly have to do some research on it though, because
I have no idea of where to start. I tried fooling around with the
DOS ping command, but it doesn't seem promising. None of my internet
software works, obviously. After doing some research on IP addresses I
discovered that the net is a lot more complicated then I thought :)

[jta]

[you know that guy.... ummm.... andre]

Well, the internet is running out of IP addresses - and they have seen
it coming a mile away - so no shock that @home could eventually run out
of their allotted bunch of IP's - but i very much doubt that it is
happening now - i dont feel like doing the math but a quick guesstimate
says that @home has several million IPs at their disposal at the
moment...

andre