And so it ends...

Thu Feb 3 19:16:19 UTC 2011

On 03/02/11 10:38 -0500, Jeffrey Lyon wrote:
>On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Alex Rubenstein <alex at corp.nac.net> wrote:
>> And we have yet to see what happens with backend transactions between
>> private institutions that have large blocks laying around, and them
>> realizing that they have a marketable and valuable thing. We may all say
>> it won't happen, we may even say we don't want it to happen, or that it
>> shouldn't be allowed - but I'm a realist.
>
>My theory is that IPv4 will continue to survive with companies
>becoming more and more conservative on the use of space. IPv6 adoption
>will happen more substantially as the cost of second hand IPv4 becomes
>more and more severe, approaching the apex of IPv4 cost vs. IPv6
>adoption cost.

That makes sense in a 'market' kind of way, however I expect v6 adoption to
be much less of a cost curve and more of a flood gate as vendors start
rolling out better support, or any support for v6.

It's difficult for me to imagine any kind of v4 address market extending
the life of the public v4-only internet more than a few months, any more
than 2 or 3 legacy /8s getting returned to the global pool would. There's
just too much growth and too few networks that would get those addresses to
be significant in the larger picture.

I do agree that v4 will continue to survive for quite some time though, but
not at the expense of v6 adoption.

-- 
Dan White