How many subscriptors (subscriptions) can Internet Service Providers have?

Question

I was trying to get into socket programming. I learned that first 16 bits of IPv4 addresses indicates the ISP and the remaining 16 bits indicate your very own device which connects to the Internet.
Then, does it mean that one ISP can only have 2^16 subscriptions?

Answer 1

that matters about the subnet mask and what level internet service you have.

then you'd also have to go through the entity that passes out those ipv4 numbers.

basically, ipv4 has room for ALOT of addresses (2^32), but not enough for the next few to 10 years.

Im sure youve made it to ipv6. and that has (3.4*10)^38 addresses