[arin-discuss] Status of realigning the IPv6 fee structure?

[Bill Prince]

In the world of supply and demand, IPv6 space should be less expensive
because there is more of it than people want.  IPv4 space should be more
expensive because there is a dwindling supply.


On 3/14/2012 1:02 PM, Luke S. Crawford wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 02:27:15PM -0400, Jean-Francois Laforest wrote:
>> I agree with Mike too. We are expanding on the commercial side of the 
>> business, considerably, but these costs would be hammering our clients 
>> with a very high cost for IPs. Therefore reducing our ipv6 
>> footprint/efforts due to costs. Client adoption of the technology 
>> requires sane pricing.
> I agree.  In my very small corner of the market, the business people
> don't care at all about IPv6.  "Maybe later."   The Engineers want it, 
> and eh, if they are my customers, I throw it in for free.  But as far 
> as I can tell, the business types don't see a business case for IPv6
> other than keeping their nerds happy.  
>
> I mean, sure, I'd pay three grand a year for a v6 allocation, no problem;
> I spend that much on stuff I evaluate and end up throwing out, even at my
> size. 
>  
> but I only have an actual business case for this because my core customer 
> base is the nerds that wanna play with this.  (And for them?  there is a 
> very rational business model.   At some point, a spike in IPv6 interest 
> is very, very likely, and at that point, having a few years of experience 
> under your belt likely will make you rather more valuable.)  Even for
> the nerds, it's a second-tier network.  If v6 breaks it's not nearly
> the hair on fire big deal that a broken v4 is.  
>
> I only mention this because yeah, three grand a year isn't a lot
> for even a small company, but I think anything more than 'comes free with
> the IPv4'  is going to get a thumbs down from most of the business people
> I know.  
>
> Personally, I think you want to make it a whole lot easier to get IPv6
> allocations.   Right now, most IPv6 installations (again, at my very 
> small corner of the market.)  are still in the 'the nerds are playing 
> with it' stage, and the business people, generally speaking, wish they'd
> spend less time on it.   E.g. the best way to enable this is to let
> the nerds go ahead without making them talk to the business people
> much, which means IPv6 needs to come free with IPv4 or something else the
> business people already approved.  
>
> I mean, at least temporarily, I think it might make sense to let people 
> get IPv6 PI space before they can get IPv4 PI space.   If your IPv6 space 
> causes you less headaches than your IPv4 space (and PI space causes 
> vastly fewer headaches than PA space)  that's a pretty valid reason
> for the business people to start moving more stuff over.   
>
> Of course, that needs to be balanced against the routing table cost of
> more PI blocks, which is why I say 'temporarily'  or something.  (I 
> mean, obviously you can't take these things back, but you could say
> something like the first X v6 PI blocks are at the reduced price, 
> after which the rules revert to normal.) 
>
> But my main point is that from where I stand, the business people don't
> care much at all about IPv6, so you are best off slipping it in for free
> whenever anyone gets any IPv4.   Certainly for the foreseeable future,
> there isn't any problem giving everyone with a IPv4 PI block of any size
> a /32 rather than a /40 or whatever.  The limit on IPv6 is going to 
> be routing table size, right?  not address space?  so as far as our real
> resource constraints go, a /40 of v6 PI space "costs" just as much as a 
> /32 of PI space, so if we are going to give out a pi block, why not give 
> people a /32?
>
>
>
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