"It's the end of the world as we know it" -- REM

Wed Apr 24 16:55:24 UTC 2013

On 4/24/13 10:18 AM, "Andrew Latham" <lathama at gmail.com> wrote:

>* Tore
>
>On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 1:46 AM, Tore Anderson <tore at fud.no> wrote:
>> * Andrew Latham
>>
>>> I have sadly witnessed a growing number of businesses with /24s
>>> moving to colocation/aws networks and not giving up their unused
>>> network space. I assume this will come into play soon.
>>
>> A couple of /24s being returned wouldn't make a significant difference
>> when it comes to IPv4 depletion. Heck, not even a couple of /8s would.
>> Trying to reclaim and redistribute unused space would be a tremendous
>> waste of effort.
>
>If I can walk around a smallish town and point at 5 businesses like
>this its a possible solution.  I am not claiming a few /24s will do, I
>am claiming that there are many (for larger values of many) companies
>like this.

Look at NRO statistics prior to APNIC and RIPE final /8 (runout).  It's
pretty linear growth. Is that the real demand for IPv4 addresses?  In the
last couple of years it was 10-15 /8 equivalents.

How many addresses do you think can be released (whether reclaimed or, as
is more likely, brought into the market)?  A /8?  Five /8s?  Say it's a
billion addresses made available to a market.  That only feeds demand for
18-30 months.  

A demand curve would show that as prices increase, there is demand for
fewer IPv4 addresses.  However, nobody knows the slope of the curve (other
than my speculation about cost of IPv6 and TCO of CGN as points where the
demand shifts).  A supply curve would show that as prices increase, more
addresses become available (transfers, renumbering, eventually
substitution).  I'm working on ideas about that slope.

Lee