"Leasing" of space via non-connectivity providers

Thu Feb 10 15:13:51 UTC 2011

> Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 01:13:49 -0600
> From: Jimmy Hess <mysidia at gmail.com>
> 
> With them not requiring a /8 in the first place (after CIDR); one
> begins to wonder how much of their /8 allocations they actually
> touched in any meaningful way.

i expect that after final depletion there will be some paid transfers
from some of the large legacy blocks.  i have no personal knowledge of
HP's situation or indeed any /8 holder's situation, but if the market
value of these transfers ever meaningfully exceeds the renumbering penalty
then their beancounters will find a way to get it done.  that's the way
of the world.

i can imagine this NOT happening.  most businesses are looking for long
term strategic investments not quick-fix short-term band-aids.  a buddy
loaned me a macbook after my thinkpad was stolen, and i loved it, and i
went down to the apple store to buy one of my own just like my buddy's
loaner and they said "we only sell that with the chicklet keyboard now"
and i tried it and hated it.  i could buy my buddy's laptop but without
applecare and without the ability to replace it if it's lost/stolen i'm
not willing to make that investment.  so for me it's another thinkpad.

so if a company who traditionally needs a lot of IPv4 to grow their
network knows that they can get one last quarter's worth of it from some
legacy /8 holder, they might do some kind of paid transfer, or they might
just hum some dire straits and keep moving with their ipv6 plans.

	Now it's past last call for alcohol
	Past recall has been here and gone
	The landlord finally paid us all
	The satin jazzmen have put away their horns
	And we're standing outside of this wonderland
	Looking so bereaved and so bereft
	Like a Bowery bum when he finally understands
	The bottle's empty and there's nothing left

	(Your Latest Trick)

for some IPv4 based businesses a /8 would be more than a lifetime supply,
but there's a value ceiling imposed by the space other people can get.
(when everybody else has made other arrangements, the relative value of
one's own hoard decreases.)

> Perhaps the RIRs should personally and directly ask each /8 legacy
> holder to provide account of their utilization (which portions of the
> allocation is used, how many hosts), and ASK for each unused /22 [or
> shorter] to be returned.
> 
> The legacy holders might (or might not) refuse.  They might (or might
> not) tell the RIRs "Hell no" In any case, the registry should ASK and
> publish an indication for each legacy /8 at least.
> 
> So the community will know which (if any) legacy /8 holders are likely
> to be returning the community's IPv4 addresses that they obtained but
> don't have need for.
> 
> The community should also know which /8 legacy holders say "Hell no,
> we're keeping all our /8s, and not telling you how much of the
> community's IPv4 resources we're actually using".

this gets into the controversial topic of an RIR's standing with respect
to legacy space, and i'll leave that to the lawyers to talk about.  but
as owen and others have said, if a legacy holder were approached in this
way knowing that their answer was going to be on the public record in the
way, they probably would see no incentive at all to answer the question.