IP4 Space - the lie

Sun Mar 7 06:21:26 UTC 2010

On Mar 7, 2010, at 2:49 AM, Saku Ytti wrote:

> On (2010-03-06 10:07 -0800), Cameron Byrne wrote:
> 
>> Folks are risking their business and their customers if they don't
>> have an IPv6 plan, and when i say IPv6 plan i mean IPv6-only.  This
>> list has already examined how polluted the remaining free IPv4 blocks
>> are ... and as others have pointed out, CGN will be an expensive and
>> poor QoE reality for those clinging to IPv4
> 
> I'm personally afraid that EU+US companies may not see the risk. Majority
> of people in EU+US who want broadband and have purchase power for the
> services, should already have connectivity, as broadband penetration is
> somewhat complete.
> 
While it is more complete than many other countries, there are still rural
areas where it is not, and, the relatively high churn rate in competitive
markets will actually still lead to a need for increasing address allocations
and assignments as customers move from ISPs that already have space
for them to ISPs that need more space.

If you look at the ARIN consumption statistics, or, the RIPE consumption
statistics, there is certainly no indication that the demand for addresses
has been significantly reduced in EU+US.

> Companies offering products/services may view that implementing IPv6 will
> not bring them new business, but implementing it carries non-zero cost. And
> providing access to consumers who are not potential customers increases
> costs without increasing revenue.
> 
It may not bring you new business, but, it may be necessary to avoid losing
the business you have.  Most businesses that are built on an MRR model
have to pay attention to that.  Generally speaking, customer retention is
regarded as important in most such organizations.

> The major losers in EU+US market seem to be start-ups, who can't get
> addresses and thus have fraction of the market size giving existing
> companies unfair competitive advantage, nearly impossible to overcome.
> 
I think at least the first several such startups will be able to get space out
of the /10 reserved for transitional technologies to provide front-end
proxies and such for their services.  Startup eye-ball ISPs may be at
a greater disadvantage for a relatively short period of time as they will
essentially have to deploy an IPv6 customer network along side a
technology such as NAT64 or DS-LITE.  However, the more of these
are created, the more pressure there is for content and service providers
to provide native IPv6 availability of their content and services, so, I think
it will rapidly solve itself on that level.

> I would personally hope that EU+US would mandate that residential ISP add
> IPv6 to their subscribers by default, without possibility to opt-out in
> n years time. Hopefully n would be no more than 3.
> 
I wouldn't hold my breath on that. It simply doesn't map to the regulatory
framework and culture prevalent in the US at this time.

Owen