IPV4 as a Commodity for Profit

Mon Feb 18 17:22:53 UTC 2008

I suppose that this is easier said than done. I doubt whether those
"hording" IP space all allocate them in a uniform contiguous manner so even
if there was sufficient monitory incentive I wonder whether it would be
worth it trying to renumber an entire network so as to "sell" a whole
contiguous block. This introduces the complexity that not just any IP block
will do but it has to satisfy certain conditions, which complicates things
even further.
The amount of disruptions in the process of renumbering would erode the
perceived gains very quickly.
But let us see what the meeting will yield.

Raymond Macharia 
Head of Engineering
AccessKenya
Email: engineering at accesskenya.com 
Web: http://www.accesskenya.com/ 
Communications Solutions Ltd
4th Floor | Museum Hill Centre
P.O. Box 43588 - 00100 | Nairobi  

From: Rod Beck [mailto:Rod.Beck at hiberniaatlantic.com] 
Sent: 2008-02-18 20:06
To: John Lee; Raymond Macharia; NANOG list
Subject: RE: IPV4 as a Commodity for Profit

Hi John,

I think that comment is way out of line. In fact, I met at LINX one of
authors of a trading proposal. They are smart, well educated individuals.

Markets have proven to be excellent mechanisms for allocating resources
fairness is a distinct issue) and might be the medication required given the
apparent hoarding of IP addresses.

Nor is the trading of IP addresses inconsistent with ARIN ownership.

Regards,  

Roderick S. Beck
Director of European Sales
Hibernia Atlantic
1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris
http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com
Wireless: 1-212-444-8829.
Landline: 33-1-4346-3209.
French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97.
AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth
rod.beck at hiberniaatlantic.com
rodbeck at erols.com
``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.'' Albert
Einstein.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog at merit.edu on behalf of John Lee
Sent: Mon 2/18/2008 4:45 PM
To: Raymond Macharia; NANOG list
Subject: RE: IPV4 as a Commodity for Profit

Distribution:

This "idea" comes from clueless individuals who want to know "who owns the
Internet"? When I worked at Enron Broadband Services "the crooked E",
management wanted to buy PSInet so that "we" could developed a trading desk
for IP address blocks.

We informed management that neither EBS or PSInet owned their IP addresses
but rented them from ARIN. And when the organization indicates that IP
addresses are no longer needed, they can be returned to ARIN or ARIN can
come and get them from the organization per ARIN AUP and other policies that
users signed when making a request to ARIN. (Review a court case several
years ago, about a company going into bankruptcy, I believe, claiming that
"their" IP addresses were part of the assets of the company...)

Now for those who could not follow the last paragraph, the analogy is when
you were young and renting your apartment or house and you wanted to make
money selling one of the rooms of your rented apartment or house.

So anyone with spare /16 or larger send the blocks back to ARIN so they can
be good stewards of the diminishing resource.

John (ISDN) Lee
I Still Don't kNow
It Suites Dennis's Needs

________________________________

From: owner-nanog at merit.edu on behalf of Raymond Macharia
Sent: Mon 2/18/2008 8:39 AM
To: 'NANOG list'
Subject: IPV4 as a Commodity for Profit

Hello
the article here
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/021308-ipv6-delay.html is an
interesting read given the current state of IPv4 depletion/IPv6 conversion
operational climate.
As it is indicated, it's a proposal and there are considerations as to
whether it makes things better or worse.

Regards

Raymond Macharia