[arin-announce] IPv4 Address Space (fwd)

Mon Oct 27 21:10:26 UTC 2003

I love this.

ARIN publicly states, "Whatchoo talkin about, Willis?" (see announcement
below)

So, by extrapolation, if we've collectively used 20 /8s over the past 5
years, and we have 90 left, that's over 20 years of IPv4 growth we have
left.

Some would ask, "What about increasing address usage?"

I would ask, "What evidence do you have that usage is increasing?"

Technologies like NAT and efforts to reclaim poorly assigned address space
have a large negative pressure on the increase of IP utilization. As more
and more "appliances" need IP addresses, people will realize more and more
that the last thing they want is those "applicances" on public IP space.

Does anybody have statistics for assigned-but-not-announced space? I'd be
willing to bet there will be more and more dead space over the years, and
in fact quite a bit of "increasing usage" is just churn.

What does any of this matter? I think there is a huge financial incentive
for NSPs to ignore IPv6 until the situation arrives where they are at a
competitive disadvantage to NOT deploy it. I also don't think that time
will ever come, as I expect new technology to trump IPv6 by the time it's
actually needed (some would argue that NAT has already accomplished this).
How about a protocol that eliminated the need for BGP, while
simultaneously making every address portable? That, to me, would be The
Answer. Not that it seems possible given what we currently know, but 20
years is a long time :) Try to think backwards 20 years, and you see how
impossible it is to conceive of the next 20 years. (Yes, I realize that
statement neuters the basis of my argument. But I'm not really stating the
future demand for IPs as fact, just assumptions to be debated.)

Does anybody honestly think companies will commit the capex needed to
implement IPv6?

I know this thread keeps on coming up...but I don't see any positive
momentum for IPv6, and if the people of this Esteemed Forum can't agree
that IPv6 is something that must happen ASAP, how will the PHBs (those who
control the money) and the customers (those who control demand) ever be
convinced?

Hell, I can't even convince myself that IPv6 is neccessary. Is anybody out
there totally sold on IPv6, enough to evangelize it to anybody willing to
listen? I mean, IPv6 is no CIDR...

Andy

---
Andy Dills
Xecunet, Inc.
www.xecu.net
301-682-9972
---

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 14:48:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Member Services <memsvcs at arin.net>
To: arin-announce at arin.net
Subject: [arin-announce] IPv4 Address Space

There have been press articles posted over the past
year that make statements about the remaining pool
of IPv4 address space.  A recent article states there
is a shortage and that Internet Protocol Numbers will
run out some time in the year 2005.

The Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) do not
themselves make predictions about when the remaining
IPv4 address space will be depleted.  They do, however,
report on the rates of RIR allocation of IPv4 address
space and on the state of the remaining pool of unicast
IPv4 address space.

The RIRs report statistics regarding IPv4 allocation on
their respective web sites and present a "Joint
Statistics" report at each of the RIR meetings and at
other Internet industry meetings several times yearly.
The most recent presentation on this subject can be
found at the following location.

     http://www.arin.net/statistics/index.html

This report states that the RIRs have collectively
allocated 19.59 /8 equivalents between the dates of
January 1999 and June 2003 (4.5 years).  It also
identifies that there are 91 /8 equivalents held by the
IANA in reserve for future allocation by the RIRs.

The RIRs will continue to report this information on a
regular basis and will work closely with the IANA to
ensure the efficient management of the remaining
IPv4 address space.

Richard Jimmerson
Director of Operations
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)