Market-based address allocation

Fri May 2 14:40:16 UTC 2003

I guess the better question is, what changed between 1996 and 2003?

- Processor speeds have increased dramatically
- Memory is dirt cheap in a way almost unthinkable in 1996.

So, a little additional routing table bloat hurts no one. Yes, yes, this
is heresy.

Of course, that doesn't mean that a market based system causes ANY additional routing
table growth...

- Carriers have no incentive to change their filters

- The current length filters work quite nicely. /20s are always routable,
/24s are usually routable, depending on the weather, etc. YMMV, of course.

- ARIN, or whomever is the brokerage/dealmaker/clearinghouse for these
deals can simply refuse to transfer anything smaller than a /20, unless
its in legacy swamp space

- The sellers would, for their own protection, refuse to stipulate that
ANY block they sell is globally routable, if they have any sense.

- Of course, current, more or less unutilized class As and such might get
sold off in /20 chunks and advertised, but theres nothing wrong with this.

If, by a routing prefix market, you mean that folks with lots of prefixes
get to pay folks to carry their data, then its a DOA idea. Current
Settlement Free Peering arrangements work fine - no one is looking to
upset the apple cart.

- Daniel Golding

On Thu, 1 May 2003, David Conrad wrote:

> Daniel,
>
> So, lets say we go ahead a float IP address space and anyone can buy
> whatever prefix they think need and have the cash for.
>
> What happens to the routing tables?
>
> The reason the BOF back in '96 was entitled "Pricing of Internet
> Addresses and Routing Announcements' was that the folks who seriously
> considered the idea realized that in the IPv4 CIDR world we live in,
> selling address space without somehow tying those sales into some sort
> of market for routing prefixes was a recipe for "fun", or at least lots
> of prefix length filters and subsequently more unhappiness.
>
> If someone can figure out how to get the ISPs of the world to
> participate in a routing prefix market, then it might be worth
> revisiting this idea.  Note that there is nothing stopping establishing
> a routing prefix market now, so it could be done prior to changing
> address allocation policies.
>
> Rgds,
> -drc
>
> On Thursday, May 1, 2003, at 10:27  AM, Daniel Golding wrote:
>
> >
> > Treating IP space as a commodity is no more strange than trading
> > financial
> > options or other derivatives, or, for that matter, intellectual
> > property.
> > Bits, numbers, and agreements all hold value outside of the context of
> > purely physical property.
> >
> > Sadly, this sort of idea tends to stomp on the socialistic sort of
> > idealism that is particularly prevalent amongst some in the IETF and
> > NANOG
> > communities, who feel it would leave out the "little guys". I suspect
> > that
> > any real world float of IP address space would result in a pretty low
> > price per ip address, if the market was sufficiently liquid. It might
> > be
> > cheaper for a little guy to get a few $K together for IPs, then to
> > build a
> > network capable of "justifying" a /20 from an RIR.
> >
> > Maybe ARIN should reinvent itself as a mercantile exchange?
> >
> > - Dan
> >
> > On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 bmanning at karoshi.com wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Wednesday, April 30, 2003, at 07:44  AM, Bill Nickless wrote:
> >>>> As a thought experiment, think of how the IPv4 addressing situation
> >>>> (bogon advertisements, allocations, explosion of routing table
> >>>> sizes,
> >>>> etc) would be different if the IP community treated IP addresses as
> >>>> a
> >>>> commodity.
> >>>
> >>> PIARA, The Sequel.  Take N+1.  Action!  Anybody got any rubber balls
> >>> Peter Lothberg can monopolize this time? :-)
> >>
> >> 	I still have mine, plus the five or six I took away from
> >> 	the others in the room.  ...  psst, buddy, want to buy an
> >> 	"8"
> >>
> >>> Sorry to be flip.  In case you haven't already, see:
> >>> http://www.apnic.net/mailing-lists/piara/index.shtml
> >>
> >> 	Oh... sorry, are folks really seriously wanting
> >> 	to treat integers as a marketable commodity?
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Rgds,
> >>> -drc
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>