Kremen's Buddy?

Tue Sep 12 20:21:12 UTC 2006

Thus spake <andrew2 at one.net>
> owner-nanog at merit.edu wrote:
>
>> Once this subject took off on nanog, I have been
>> oversaturated with people trying to "sell" me ip space.  I
>> have had offers for several /16's for 10,000.00 each that are
>> no longer in use by the companies who "own" lol them.
>
> It seems to me that this nicely illustrates a major problem with the
> current system.  Here we have large blocks of IP space that, by their
> own rules, ARIN should take back.  It all sounds nice on paper, but
> clearly there is a hole in the system whereby ARIN doesn't know and
> apparently has no way of figuring out that the space is no longer in
> use.  It makes me wonder just how much space like that there is out
> there artifically increasing IP scarcity.  I don't know what the
> solution is, but the way things currently work it seems like if you 
> can
> justify a block today, it's yours forever even if you stop actively
> using it.  Maybe allowing for some kind of IP market would cut down on
> that type of hoarding -- you would at the very least change the type 
> of
> value those subnets have.

ARIN's policies allow for grandfathering of allocations/assignments made 
prior to ARIN's establishment at least in part because they'd be on 
shaky ground legally trying to revoke them for noncompliance.  It's not 
like those folks would willingly sign an RSA that would immediately 
result in losing their resources.  And the community has, so far, agreed 
with this because the problem is at least getting no worse; it's 
manageable to make allowances for a fixed or shrinking number of legacy 
address space holders.

However, I do recall that ISI ran (runs?) a program trying to contact 
folks who had legacy allocations and see if they were willing to return 
the parts they didn't need.  Bill Manning reported on the progress a few 
times, and apparently a large number of those orgs either no longer 
existed or were willing to give back what they didn't need.  I think 
this approach is acceptable to everyone, though I'd like to see more 
stats on what's been done and a more official sanction for the work.

Also, IIRC, folks who have legacy allocations/assignments can't get more 
until their existing space is up to current standards, so it's not like 
they're getting a free ride on the old space _and_ getting new space. 
All we have to complain about are the folks that have so much they'll 
never need more, and those are relatively few in reality.  I'm pretty 
sure the same situation exists for non-legacy space holders; even if you 
comply at the time of the request, if you later fall below the standards 
you're safe -- but you can't get more until you're back up to the 
standards.

All in all, the process is decent, and it has community support.  Ideal? 
No, but nothing ever is when lawyers get involved.

S

Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking 