[ppml] Policy Proposal: 2007-12 IPv4 Countdown Policy Proposal

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

 >...shouldn't we let the market determine the value of IPv4
> addresses?
> 
> Imagine if some central source (ICANN or the RIRs) created a service
> where transfers of IP address space could be registered like a county
> registrar of deeds.

We call this service, ARIN.

> In our world we commonly deal with limited resources.  For example,
> consider land in Florida.  There is no chance of switching to land in
> Florida v6.  Over many years we have developed mature, commonly
> understood methods of buying and selling land.  We have real estate
> agents, title companies, mortgage companies and the county 
> registrar of
> deeds.

You could have picked any state in the union. Why choose Florida of all
places. At one time it had a well-deserved reputation for selling
non-existent land, i.e. mangrove swamp. Then, some smart people figured
out that instead of ripping of northerners by selling them swampland,
they could make more money by manufacturing land by filling in the
swamps. IPv4 addresses are not as malleable as Florida land. They are
more like the good solid square plots of land found in the Great Plains
states.

> Some of the problems I can think of are:

And that is the basic problem with all of these "selling address" ideas.
They change things, in the hopes that it will solve some problem or
other, but with the certainty that it will create a host of new
problems.

> Some of the advantages I can think of are:
> 1) This something that CEO on an airplane can understand.  

Indeed! I can hear him on the phone to his senator now, demanding that
the government stop this madness. Remember that CEO made his career in
orderly controlled and regulated markets. Think SEC, SOX, FCC, RIAA,
ISO-9000 etc.

> If you like it,
> tell me how to improve it.  If you don't, suggest something better.

You want something better?

The basic problem is that there is not enough publicity about the IPv4
wind-down and therefore not enough debate, in the networking/IT
industry, about how to deal with it. Changing ARIN policy is not the
right way to deal with a publicity problem and not the right way to
engage the networking/IT industry in debate.

--Michael Dillon