[ppml] PPML Digest, Vol 22, Issue 12

[William Herrin]

On 4/6/07, ppml-request at arin.net < ppml-request at arin.net> wrote:
>
> Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 08:59:05 -0700
> From: David Williamson < dlw+arin at tellme.com>
> Subject: [ppml] IPv4 exhaustion - so what?
>
> At the moment, however, I'd like to see more feedback on some of the
> existing policy proposals.  There's been nearly zero feedback or
> discussion on all but one or two of *twelve* that are on the agenda.  I
> can't imagine that we'll just rubberstamp ten or eleven of them, and
> spend the rest of the time on just a couple.  Surely someone out there
> is either for or against some of the current proposals.
>

David,

Apologies in advance if I'm overly confrontational.

I'm not so sure its a question of being for or against the propsals. Most of
the proposed changes strike me as tweaking the absurdity of already
dysfunctional policies.

That's http://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/proposal_archive.html , yes?

2006-7: Not too many people WANT IPv6 space just now, so what possible
difference does it make whether they're qualified to get it? Open it up wide
and worry about qualifications after a reasonable percent of the space is
actually in use.

At this point in IPv6's adoption, almost ANY policy is counterproductive to
its deployment. Play policy wonk if you want but don't imagine that doing so
helps.

Also, as another poster pointed out, it would be very helpful if every IPv4
allocation mapped directly to an IPv6 allocation so that folks who already
hold v4 addresses can start working on v6 deployments without talking to
ARIN or anybody else. That holds me back more than any other single thing:
I'd start tinkering but its not worth the effort to talk to ARIN first.

2007-1: Why is ARIN still using email for this process anyway? 1997 was a
long time ago. The process is tailor made for a web app, perhaps with email
confirmations, and such an app can be reasonably locked down irrespective of
PGP. Worrying about email authentication entirely misses the mark.

2007-2: Same. See 2007-1.

2007-3: Same. See 2007-1.

2007-4: See 2006-7.

2007-5: Same. See 2006-7.

2007-6: Seems to me that discontinuing "class C" assignments was intended to
overcome late-90's router memory limitations. Is that still a significant
issue? I'll leave it to folks more qualified than I am.

2007-7: Fine.

2007-8: You can revise this until you're old and gray and if transfers still
require ARINs approval the only result will be networks that are re-routed
in the BGP table with only a postal address update to ARIN. IP address space
is an asset and folks will treat it like an asset. Treating address space as
something else, something its obviously not, merely discourages people from
talking with ARIN or taking it seriously.

2007-9: Shouldn't we be doing things to deliberately discourage folks from
acquiring large quantities of IPv4 space? Plus there's a saying I'm fond of:
"Your lack of planning is not my emergency." MSOs deploying CMTS' generally
know they're doing it more than a year in advance. They have to: it takes a
lot of money and manpower. How reasonable can their IP address planning
actually be if they need the IP address component of that to turn around on
an extremely short schedule? Answer: it can't.

2007-10: See 2007-9.

2007-11: Fine.

2007-12: You'll never make it stick. It'll turn out worse than the regularly
postponed end of analog TV with ARIN as the punching bag for all sides.

As at least a couple of the other posters have pointed out, the practical
way to solve this is with economics: As exhaustion approaches, make it so
holding IP addresses becomes progressively more expensive for everybody in
direct proportion to the number of addresses held. Sooner or later you hit
an equilibrium where the folks abandoning address space equal the folks
requesting new space.

Of course, it has to be in direct proportion to the number of addresses
held. If it continues to cost much less per IP address to hold a /12 than it
does to hold a /22 then increasing the cost would only serve to destroy the
little guy.


Hey, you asked what I really thought.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin                   herrin at dirtside.com   bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr.                        Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
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