[ppml] Restrictions on transferor deaggregation in 2008-2: IPv4 Transfer Policy Proposal

On Mar 11, 2008, at 2:26 PM, Jo Rhett wrote:

> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>> What you CANNOT have, is your cake and eat it to.  You CANNOT have  
>> prolonged
>> IPv4 lifespan without an increase in deaggregation.
>
> I don't often find myself 100% agreeing with Ted, but this is one of
> those cases.  I don't believe that preventing deaggregation is
> plausible.  I suspect that attempts to do so with move parties
> interested in using the transfer policy (if approved) into the black
> market to avoid dealing with the policy limitations.


Okay, either I'm missing something completely here or everyone else  
has gotten so wrapped up in the idea of transferring space that  
nobody's considering the alternative that I think is a whole heck of a  
lot more likely... which is already possible and going to cause  
deaggregation wether we want it or not.

Why sell when you can rent and keep collecting cash?

Right now I can go to any colo provider and say "I want a half dozen  
racks, power, and connectivity for my 150 servers." and pretty easily  
get a /23 or larger. Now what happens if I say "You know, why don't  
you forget about the racks, power, bandwidth and everything else...  
How much would just the /23 be per month?"

This is possible right now, and as far as I can tell not breaking any  
policies. A big hosting or colo provider with excess v4 space can SWIP  
space to the highest bidder for a large monthly check, and have the  
security that if they end up needing more v4 later they can pull it  
back. There's no need for a black market, no need for complying with a  
complicated transfer policy, no need to give up space irrevocably, and  
it becomes a continuing revenue stream instead of a one off payment.  
As v4 space gets more and more scarce, the market price goes up along  
with the asking price.

I don't think there's any way this can be prevented under current  
policies, and even though it feels wrong I don't know how you can  
prevent this without preventing other more "legitimate" business.  
Require that the address space come with some kind of service? Okay,  
throw in a dialup PPP line with it. Where do you draw the line that  
won't take more time to verify than it's worth?

Rather than a stock-market like service of selling IP space, I think  
it's a lot more likely that we're going to see ISPs offering IP space  
as a standalone monthly service.

This will cause deaggregation.

This is possible already, with no policy changes.

I'd actually be surprised if it's not happening already for networks  
that were denied by their RIR.

-- Kevin