Last week, Nortel filed a motion seeking approval for the sale from the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. If the deal is approved, Microsoft would assume control of the IPv4 addresses, currently owned by Nortel, for about $11.25 a piece.

About 470,000 of the addresses will be available for immediate use by Microsoft, while the remaining will be released to the company at the end of the bankruptcy proceedings, according to court documents filed in connection with the proposed sale.

News of the proposed deal comes just weeks after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that it had , and that any supplies remaining with regional registries would soon run out.

Some have speculated that a black market for IPv4 addresses will form as their supply begins to wind down and more organizations are faced with the costs and risks involved in a migration to the IPv6 protocol.

ICANN and regional registrars have noted that the remaining IPv4 addresses will go to entities that demonstrate an immediate need for them.