IPV4 as a Commodity for Profit

Tue Feb 19 12:28:51 UTC 2008

David Conrad wrote:

> 
> John,
> 
> On Feb 18, 2008, at 9:48 AM, John Lee wrote:
> 
>> ARIN (and other RIRs)  and the rules of use of IP address were  
>> specifically setup to allow global communications around the world  
>> with a large number of entities on an equal basis.
> 
> 
> More IP addresses were allocated prior to the creation of the RIRs  than 
> since.  The terms under which those early allocations were made  is a 
> bit fuzzy (to put it mildly). 

When IANA free pool exhaustion happens or even appears to be imminent, 
one can expect push for allocation policies to be changed drastically 
towards the miserly. That will likely affect the value equation even 
before pool exhaustion.

Furthermore, I expect more credence will be lent to the reclaiming 
efforts, and pre-RIR swamp space has lots of candidates.

Class-E, rfc3330 and similar reclamation might occur as well.

"effort not worth the return" objections, maybe its true, not under 
current allocation guidelines and resulting burn rate. Therefore, I 
would favor not performing reclamations until/unless those are changed.

Consider under new drastically more miserly policies, likely return will 
be worth the effort, if not right away, then in a bit in the future.

ipv4 experimental space has no reason to exist, experiments should all 
be ipv6 anyways.

> ARIN is attempting to remedy this  
> fuzziness by creating a "legacy RSA" in which you give up some  
> potential rights in exchange for some potential rights (it also  asserts 
> ARIN has the right to decide what happens with all the legacy  space 
> which causes some concern internationally, but that's not  relevant 
> here).  See http://www.arin.net/registration/legacy/ index.html for more 
> information.
> 
>> PS: The RIRs are community driven and so if the community wants to  
>> become a market place, they can petition ARIN have a vote and change  
>> if the majority of the community wants to.
> 
> 
> The question really isn't whether the ARIN community will want a  market 
> to exist.  A market, albeit black or grey, exists already.

And we should be taking into account the value addresses have in this 
market as opposed to the "white" market, on an ongoing basis.

>  The  
> question is how ARIN will deal with the market after the IPv4 free  pool 
> exhausts. 

I expect the value will skyrocket, whether on the black, grey or white 
market.

> Ignoring the market will likely result in the  
> marginalization of ARIN for services such as registration of address  
> space (for good or ill).  Not ignoring the market will likely result  in 
> all sorts of 'fun', in the worst case similar to what has occurred  in 
> the domain name market.

If there is a market, it makes little sense to ignore it, gonna be all 
sorts of consequences to doing so.

> 
> "Choose wisely."
> 
> Regards,
> -drc
> 
> 