IPV4 as a Commodity for Profit

Wed Feb 20 08:52:35 UTC 2008

On 20 feb 2008, at 8:13, Raymond Macharia wrote:

> 1. Where is the current demand for IPv4 coming from? Plenty of  
> analysis
> here.

Hm, let's see:

mysql> select rir, country, descr, num, day from addrspace where day  
 >= 20060101 and type = 'ipv4' order by num desc limit 5;
+---------+---------+-------------+---------+------------+
| rir     | country | descr       | num     | day        |
+---------+---------+-------------+---------+------------+
| ripencc | FR      | 90.0.0.0    | 8388608 | 2006-03-02 |
| apnic   | CN      | 116.128.0.0 | 4194304 | 2007-05-11 |
| apnic   | CN      | 117.128.0.0 | 4194304 | 2007-07-17 |
| apnic   | IN      | 117.192.0.0 | 4194304 | 2007-08-01 |
| arin    | US      | 75.0.0.0    | 4194304 | 2006-02-28 |
+---------+---------+-------------+---------+------------+

inetnum:        90.0.0.0 - 90.0.0.255
role:           Wanadoo France Technical Role
address:        FRANCE TELECOM/SCR

inetnum:      116.128.0.0 - 116.191.255.255
descr:        New Guoxin Telecom Corporation

inetnum:      117.128.0.0 - 117.191.255.255
descr:        China Mobile Communications Corporation

inetnum:      117.192.0.0 - 117.255.255.255
descr:        NIB (National Internet Backbone)

AT&T Internet Services SBCIS-SBIS-6BLK (NET-75-0-0-0-1)
                                   75.0.0.0 - 75.63.255.255

Answer: ISPs/telcos.

> 2. Can the new demand be steered towards IPv6 therefore slow down IPv4
> depletion. For example in the developing world a lot of the demand  
> is brand
> new and therefore can it be satisfied with IPv6? Of course  
> incentives are in
> order though it's much easier than asking the behemoths to give up  
> "their"
> /16s etc.

Well, you could give IPv6 instead of IPv4 but only if they can talk to  
the rest of the world over IPv6. So everyone who has IPv4 today would  
have to add IPv6, but if they were prepared to do that, running out of  
IPv4 space wouldn't be an issue in the first place.

Also, who cares about /16s? We currently have 16848 /16s left and  
we're using up approximately 8 - 9 of them each day. Postponing the  
inevitable by 3 hours really isn't all that useful...

Can we please finish off the remaining IPv4 address space already so  
we can get on with our lives?