[arin-discuss] IPv6 as justification for IPv4?

[Tim St. Pierre]

Hello,

We are a new ISP, and we have had some interesting dilemma's getting
started.  I'm curious to know if this is something that has affected
others, or if I'm just in a strange situation.

We are building out an access network to reach business customers in a
small town.  We will probably never be very big, but we like are town
and are hoping to eventually extend our reach to most business in town. 
When we started, we requested a /32 IPv6 from ARIN.  We had to explain
what we were doing, and our coverage area, etc.  This seems reasonable
and all, and eventually we got our /32.  At this point, all we had was a
/28 IPv4 SWIP'd from an upstream, so our fees jumped from $0 to $1800
for the year.

Now we have a running network, with real customers, and we need IPv4
allocations, since running IPv6 only for retail Internet is a bit
problematic.  We tried to get a /24 out of our upstream, but they are
essentially out of address space and can't give us any.  They can't get
any more either, because they just got taken over by a larger carrier
that has free pools, but on a different AS.

We do have another upstream that we could connect to, but they can't
give us anything more than a /28 either.

I applied for a /22 under the immediate need category, but I don't
qualify, since I can really only use about 2/3 of it within 30 days.

So now I'm stuck with a customer base that has native IPv6 for everyone,
but only a /29 IPv4 to share between 12 offices and about 200 or so
retail WiFi users.  I have to do crazy incoming NAT nonsense to support
my customers mail servers and VPN devices, and I'm crossing my fingers
that the wireless users don't do something stupid and get us all
blacklisted.

Should there be an additional policy to deal with initial allocations
where efficient utilization of X number of IPv6 /64s would serve as
justification for a /22 IPv4, or perhaps some other scheme that makes it
a little easier for new ISPs.  I understand that IPv4 is constrained,
but we aren't out of them yet, and a small ISP still needs an allocation
to function.

Another alternative would be a new entrant policy similar to the
immediate need clause, but with the following changes:
-Only 50% must be used within 30 days
-ISP must demonstrate that IPv6 has been deployed to end users
-The same documentation of customer contracts and purchased equipment
would still apply.

I look around and see the big incumbents with no IPv6 to speak of, yet
they have IPv4 for every customer.  Here I am as the little startup
trying to make a go of it, but I'm at a serious disadvantage because I
can't get any address resources.

Am I just terribly unlucky, or is this becoming a problem for others as
well?  I think the main issue is that upstream providers aren't able to
hand out /24s like they used to, so showing a /23 equivalent from an
upstream is next to impossible now.

Thanks!
-Tim

-- 
--
Tim St. Pierre
System Operator
Communicate Freely
289 225 1220 x5101
tim at communicatefreely.net
www.communicatefreely.net