Encouraging return of legacy space WAS Re: [ppml] ARIN Policy Proposal 2002-9

[Michael.Dillon at radianz.com]

>I think that we would also want to publicly recognize their 
>public-spiritedness, assuming they want the recognition.  Maybe put them 
on 
>a list of good netizens on the ARIN website, put out a press release, 
give 
>them a trophy or a medal...  You get the picture.  It's good for them, 
and 
>it also encourages others to do the right thing.

While it may be a good idea to contact holders of large amounts of legacy 
IPv4 addresses in the Class A and Class B ranges to see if they will 
voluntarily return the space to IANA, this type of thing should not 
concern ARIN at this time. This is the sort of activity that should be 
coordinated globally and it should be done with the blessing of IANA and 
ICANN if it is done at all.

ARIN members would be better off deploying testbed IPv6 networks and 
connecting these with other company's testbed IPv6 networks in order to 
gain experience with IPv6. When the address shortage does become 
significant enough to push customers towards IPv6, it is likely to quickly 
become a tidal wave migration. Historically, IPv4 was deployed for many 
years before there was a sudden exponential demand for it in 1994 and 
1995. The main reason that ISPs were able to meet the demand is that there 
were a lot of people around who had years of hands-on experience running 
IPv4 networks. At the time they were gaining that experience, they didn't 
know how IPv4 would be used in the future. They didn't foresee the web and 
e-commerce and then decide to run an IPv4 network. Similarily, with IPv6 
we don't need to predict grand future horizons in order to find a reason 
to deploy it today. One small reason is enough and it doesn't have to be 
the same reason for everybody.