Starlink tells the world it has over 150 sextillion IPv6 addresses
- Reference: 1761717488
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/10/29/nded/
- Source link:
Internet infrastructure analyst Doug Madory on Wednesday used the Internet Society’s [1]Pulse blog to share his analysis of the IP addresses Starlink lists in its IP geolocation file, the format network operators use to self-report where they use the IP addresses they hold.
Huawei handed 2,596,148,429,267,413,
814,265,248,164,610,048 IPv6 addresses [2]READ MORE
Madory noted recent changes to Starlink’s file, which over the years has described an increasing quantity of IP address holdings.
According to his analysis, in April 2022 Starlink’s geolocation file mentioned 592 /24 IPv4 blocks – each of which covers 256 IP addresses. As of July, Elon Musk’s space ISP had 1,379 /24s, plus hundreds of smaller blocks, and therefore over 350,000 IPv4 addresses to play with.
Its IPv6 holdings are, as you would expect, vastly larger.
[3]
The entire IPv6 number space has 2 128 addresses – over 340 undecillion addresses.
[4]
[5]
According to Madory, in April 2022 Starlink’s file indicated it used 61 /36 blocks, each of which contains 2 92 addresses – or about 4.95 sextillion addresses. As of July this year, Starlink’s geolocation file mentioned 383 /40 blocks (2 88 addresses, or around 390 quintillion apiece) plus 24 /41s (2 87 each or 154 quintillion) and 205 /42s (2 86 or 77 quintillion). In October, Madory spotted another 86 /40s in Starlink’s files.
The math is head-spinning, but we think Starlink’s geolocation data mentions over 150 sextillion IPv6 addresses - a smaller number than its files mentioned three years ago.
[6]
Whatever the true number, it's colossal. Starlink is almost certainly not using them all and probably won’t because the intricacies of internetworking mean it’s not practical to use all addresses.
[7]IETF Draft suggests making IPv6 standard on DNS resolvers - partly to destroy IPv4
[8]China's IPv6 adoption takes a decent leap forward, especially on fixed networks
[9]Starlink helps eight more nations pass 50 percent IPv6 adoption
[10]IPv6 may already be irrelevant – but so is moving off IPv4, argues APNIC's chief scientist
Where in the world is Starlink?
Geoff Huston, chief scientist at the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) has also looked at Starlink’s IP geolocation data and found some oddities.
In a September [11]post he pointed out that geolocating IP addresses matters because it has “obvious uses in the ongoing fight against various forms of cyberattacks, trying to de-anonymize the identity and location of the attacker.”
“This information is also used in attempting to enforce various intellectual property rights that are often assigned to rights holders on an economy-by-economy basis,” he wrote.
But Huston feels current measurement techniques for IP geolocation struggle to handle widespread satellite internet adoption – and cites results that suggest six million people in Yemen (which is home to 10 million netizens) use Starlink as an example. He thinks one possible explanation for that odd result is that ships at sea passing Yemen on their way to the Suez Canal use Starlink. But he also noted that as just 60 ships a day use the Canal, even all the vessels in transit can’t explain the amount of Starlink users.
[12]
His alternative theory is that Starlink uses Yemen as a base to distribute terminals to other countries.
“There have been persistent stories in several markets of Starlink resellers that set up a service in an economy that has the necessary national regulatory approvals to use Starlink, and then they ship the dish to a nearby location in a different economy,” Huston wrote. “It’s an open question as to the extent this is taking place, and if so, then it’s certainly plausible to guess that users in Saudi Arabia are using Starlink services that are registered in Yemen.”
Huston pointed to many other anomalies in Starlink geolocation data, such as the apparent 6,000-plus users on Saint Barthelmy, an overseas ‘collectivity’ of France with a population of 9,000 people.
“Its former status was a commune as part of Guadeloupe,” Huston wrote. “While the Starlink geolocation database distinguishes between Guadeloupe and Saint Barthelmy, it appears that other databases do not draw a distinction between the two, hence the very high proportion of placements in this economy.”
Due to the problems outlined above, and other issues elsewhere, Huston decided to override Starlink geolocation data in 20 economies listed in his post and instead assigned an ‘unclassified’ designation to part of the Starlink geolocation data.
“It’s not exactly a satisfying response to the problem, but it stops the distortion of the national measurements due to the increasing levels of usage of these satellite-based services for Internet access,” he wrote. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://pulse.internetsociety.org/blog/blast-off-3-5-years-of-starlink-growth
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/06/apnic_huawei_ipv6/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aQHzyankjdKtgQOODnQwyAAAAUY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aQHzyankjdKtgQOODnQwyAAAAUY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aQHzyankjdKtgQOODnQwyAAAAUY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aQHzyankjdKtgQOODnQwyAAAAUY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/20/ietf_dnsop_3901bis_ipv4_ipv6/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/04/asia_in_brief/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/27/ipv6_adoption_statistics/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/23/ipv6_relevance/
[11] https://blog.apnic.net/2025/09/30/geolocation-and-starlink/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aQHzyankjdKtgQOODnQwyAAAAUY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
A different LLM says it's one per 3e12 atoms. Still totally bonkers.
Ballpark answer to question ... needs an LLM to answer it ... for 'extra' inprecision ... NOT !!!
"PS: LLM tells me in the ball park of 10^51. If that's correct, that's simply insane."
"A different LLM says it's one per 3e12 atoms. Still totally bonkers."
I can also make a 'complete guess' at the number WITHOUT using an LLM ... just as valid as any !!!
(A question, answered on the basis of ill-defined information gives you a 'complete guess' with no accuracy ... I can do that !!!)
:)
A little back of the envelope math
Adding up all the numbers (just via their magnitude) shows that Starlink is using 1/2^32 of all IPv6 addresses. If they used the same percentage in IPv4 addresses they'd have exactly ONE (actually less than one since IPv4 has a lot of wasted address space for multicast, localhost, 10.x and various other reservations)
So while the numbers sound crazy IPv6 is designed to be very wasteful of address space, to justify the stupidity of going to 128 bits instead of doing a backwards compatible 64 bit deployment (which IMHO would have seen the whole world on IPv6 long ago)
"interesting facts"
I think that's perhaps overstating it.
So many IP addresses in the Suez Canal
Obviously that is down to all the spyware buried inside the cheap tat being shipped from China.
That is why the stuffed toy is always tiny compared to what you thought the picture showed, shipped inside a too-big box: disappointing the kid when it is unwrapped is just one purpose. The other is - well, you know that crinkly stuff filling the otherwise empty package? That isn't simply old fashioned excelsior, it is a cunningly designed fractal omnidirectional antenna for the Starlink connection. And have you noticed how the bubbles in the wrap they use is a slightly different size from the stuff we use? Tuned cavity! They are watching everything and now have a detailed map of every tat-filled seaside gift shop, which can be targeted to make our rain-soaked Summer hols just slightly more bleak. The fiends!
Since the smallest prefix allocation to a customer should be a /64...
... and RIRs ask to allocate at least a /56, to allow for VLANs - the actual math is a bit different. What matters is how many prefixes can be assigned from the IPv6 pool, and that depends on the average prefix size.
Re: Since the smallest prefix allocation to a customer should be a /64...
What also matters is the “standard “ prefixing and subnetting ie. That which is baked into firmware and hardware, helping to minimise routing table and processing overheads.
2^128 addresses
340 undecillion. For those of you, like me, who simply can't grasp the beauty of exponents, here is what that number looks like :
340282366920938000000000000000000000000
That's 340.28 trillion trillion trillion addresses (because I just learned of the existence of the word 'undecillion', and I still can't grok that).
Seems like a lot to me, but okay, IPv6 was apparently designed to be future-proof, so with enough space to guarantee that colonies on the Moon, Mars, Ganymede, the asteroid belt and the rest of the Solar System would be able to connect. Apparently, we'll have to invent a new version of NAT translation when we invade colonize Alpha Centauri. We'll handle that when we get there.
In any case; Starlink claiming that it has over 150 [1]sextillion IPv6 addresses means that it holds, wait for it : 360 trillion trillion addresses.
We have an estimated 8 billion people on this planet. That means Starlink is hoarding enough IPv6 space to allow for more or less 125 billion IPv6 addresses for every single living person on the planet.
Now I realize that all that fucking "smart" tat that is being sold is going to take up a portion (mathematical, >0) of that space, and smartphones are selling like hotcakes despite the fact that, like PC tech, the newest version is now only incrementally better (for a given definition of 'better') than the previous one but still, it seems to me to be a bit much for one company to hold.
What in God's green Earth is Starlink doing with all of that address space ? There has to be a technical reason. No company buys address blocks for bragging rights.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextillion_(disambiguation)
Re: 2^128 addresses
Surely Pascal that’s:
340.282.366.920.938.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000
> There has to be a technical reason.
I presume they will be assigning each end point a /56 or a /64 address, just like fixed line ISPs.
Also they probably need each individual address space to be of some specific size so that it can handle all the potential end-points in some geographic region or what ever Starlink are dividing the world into to be able to efficiently route stuff.
Re: 2^128 addresses
>What in God's green Earth is Starlink doing with all of that address space ? There has to be a technical reason. No company buys address blocks for bragging rights.
You're looking at this from an IPv4 perspective, rather than IPv6. Compare my ISP / Starlink dynamically allocating me a single IPv4 address, vs it giving an IPv6 /48, /56 or /64 allocation. The "meanest" of those, the /64 which Starlink allocates, is 18.4 quintillion IPv6 addresses. So what really should be compared is the gross number of addresses divided by the range allocated to each terminal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#General_allocation
How many IPv6 addresses is that for every single atom currently constituting the Earth and everything on and in it?
Fine, up the Korman line, if you insist!
PS: LLM tells me in the ball park of 10^51. If that's correct, that's simply insane.