[ppml] Proposed Policy: IPv4 Countdown

At 15:56 -0700 3/14/07, David Conrad wrote:

>Given inertia and your observation of human nature, it would seem a
>likely outcome of the impending IPv4 free pool runout will be a vast
>swamp of IPv4 NAT end points, interconnecting and interconnected with
>private networks (either IPv4 tunneled through IPv6 or RFC 1918 space).
>
>Blech.

And this is why I am interested in this proposal being discussed.

I agree that the proposal as written is far from perfect, to say the 
least.  I want to get past that, but then again, it is the only 
proposal on the table at the moment.  Well, on the serving tray as 
it's been bounced from the table.

I do see that it is possible that ARIN ought to be in position to 
terminate the distribution of IPv4 space under the term of 
"stewardship."

ARIN has held a position of neutrality (minus relaxed fees for IPv6 - 
sorry Lee, I don't mean to start another branch into fees, but I'm 
just mentioning some past practice) of IPv4 and IPv6 because it is 
not ARIN's place to promote a technology.  That's cool, and it works 
if innovation is happening elsewhere and in response to market demand.

It is also not ARIN's place to take back resources that are being 
properly used.

But the time is coming when maybe, just maybe, ARIN should take on 
the role, in concert with the other RIRs and IANA, of retiring IPv4 
for the good of the Internet.

Imagine a day in which a lot of the network outside of the ARIN 
region is IPv6 and only ARIN is still using IPv4.  We'd have a 
network ripped in half (well, not 50/50) with our region falling 
behind the rest of the world (in IPvX).

Imagination running wild - there are 2.3 billion living in the 
largest *two* nations in the APNIC region.  There are what, 0.4 
billion in the ARIN region?  50 years from now, where's the center of 
the Internet going to be?  If now we  feel we are and we are 
comfortable that we have enough IPv4 and can stand NAT, will the 
following generations of engineers thank us for standing still when 
the center has shifted away?

Perhaps we do need to have a proposal that has an overt goal of 
retiring IPv4 and replacing it with IPv6.  I say this now, after 
having been a critic of IPv6 because I don't see market forces making 
the shift happen.  Perhaps this is a case where we want ARIN to help 
lead a transition and not just be a servant of the industry. 
Perhaps, perhaps.

I'm just sayin' is all...this is mighty hypothetical and is at the 
root cause of why I am interested in this.
-- 
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Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar

Sarcasm doesn't scale.