Nortel, in bankruptcy, sells IPv4 address block for $7.5 million

Jimmy Hess mysidia at gmail.com
Fri Mar 25 02:59:29 UTC 2011


On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 8:24 PM, John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:
> On Mar 24, 2011, at 9:13 PM, Benson Schliesser wrote:
>> At your suggestion, I went to the IGP blog and read the last comment.  I see there is a response by Ernie Rubi to your blog comment, which captures my question so well that (with apologies to Mr Rubi) I'll quote him:
> Mr. Rubi is likely already aware from his legal studies that it
> is imprudent to argue cases in public in advance of filing.
> /John

So I wonder....  rhetorically speaking.. what happens when a bankruptcy
court accidentally sells something that doesn't actually exist,
something that is 'fictional', or dead...  like an appliance warranty
without the appliance, or something that consisted of third parties
voluntarily doing something for the original holder,  without any
promise to continue....   under mistaken belief the third parties
had guaranteed something  that could be assigned to a successor?

Because that's what IP addresses are.  Totally worthless unless community
participants voluntarily route traffic for those IPs to the assignee.


E.g.   Suppose I gave my neighbors a 100% discount on widgets
for their use, just because they were neighbors, it was the community
thing to do or something (legacy IP addresses with no agreement,
no fees, contracts, etc).

One of them declared bankruptcy,  came to the court, and listed as one of their
assets  "100% widget discounts",  and went to sell it to some major  retailer,
who wants to get a massive number of widgets to resell for profit
(my name not mentioned, just as ARIN's name not mentioned)...
is there really anything the buyer actually obtains?


I mean, it sounds  like someone threw 7.5 million into a furnace,
unless they are going specified transfer.... Perhaps they come to
ARIN eventually,  but ARIN should enforce their policies.

Meaning if MS has an RSA in force, all their resources should be compliant
with ARIN policies,  and all transfer policies should be followed with regards
to justified need.

I have little doubt that MS will properly construct/justify the need if they are
obtaining resources.    It's probably an easier/cheaper task for them
to justify
legitimately under RIR policies than trying to find some method of fighting
with the community and risking an outcome that could be unfavorable
and sully their own reputation in ways that might be hard to predict.

Who knows, they have plenty of resources already and might plan a renumber
and return;   I would not assume the worst....

--
-JH




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