shim6 @ NANOG (forwarded note from John Payne)

Fri Mar 3 23:18:56 UTC 2006

>One thing that Geoff hasn't been cynical enough to put forward is
>the idea that orgs with lots of valuable, monetized address space
>may very well end up lobbying the IAB and RIRs to erect new cost
>structures around green-fields IPv6 allocations as well, to make
>sure that the profit-providing marketplace survives for as long
>as possible by making the IPv6 migration process as expensive and
>inconvenient as possible.

I'd suggest that there is no need to do so, as that particular reality
is already in place. For customers its still just mail, its still just
google, ebay, yahoo, etc. Why should they pay their ISP any
more money to have the packets colored red, blue or green?
Or use 32 bit address fields in their packets or 128bits? The
barriers to IPv6 adoption are already in place in terms of a
customer-unfunded transition to get effectively to a place
thats not very much different from where they were when
they started. It really doesn't make much sense does it?

>  What will happen when the MCI's of the
>world discover that the race to $0 for IP transit prices has created
>a world in which they make more money by selling their IPv4 addresses
>than they make by selling Internet access?  Will we see them coming
>out as a strong supporter of restrictive RIR policies and IPv6
>technologies which don't work as a way of artificially boosting
>the price of IPv6?

The real question for such holders is when to sell. In a market with
rising demand and insufficient supply, the  typical seller's strategy is to
hang on to further exacerbate demand. At what point such behaviour
results in collapse of the market as buyers find the substitution
of IPv6 viable is the key question for the seller.

>It's going to be a fun ride :-)

indeed.

    Geoff