[arin-discuss] fee structure (was Re: IPv6 as justification for IPv4?)

[David Conrad]

I have avoided this conversation largely because I see it primarily as rearranging deck chairs, however, Drake's note prompted me to comment.

On Apr 21, 2013, at 7:28 PM, Drake Pallister <drake.pallister at duraserver.com> wrote:
> That chops the head off of something called "Justification" and then MegaTegaCellTellaFlopolis, Inc. throws down a billion dollars on the table and owns all IP addresses available now,

Which would accelerate the IPv4 end game by a small number of months. Your point is? If you are not already prepared for a post-IPv4 free pool world (moving to IPv6, CGN, and/or preparing to buy IPv4 address space off the market at whatever the market will bear), your life is going to get a bit more interesting in the near future.

> Stewardship must once again wake up from it's afternoon nap, and protect the welfare of all aspects of the Internet including the Citizens, the Small, Medium, and Big service provideres, and by doing that we even have the trickle down effect to equipment makers, service technicians, installers, and you ge the picture.

"Stewardship" means the responsible planning and management of resources. It does not mean "protect the welfare of all aspects of the Internet including the Citizens, the Small, Medium, and Big service providers". I predict any attempt to redefine "responsible management of IPv4 addresses" beyond "allocated efficiently so they can be used to provide Internet connectivity" is going to run into a bit of headwind.

Despite recent amusing attempts to revise history, if the RIRs are able to act as "stewards" it is _only_ because the community gives them the power to do so. When the RIRs act against the self-interest of the community they serve, that power will vanish quite suddenly. If your view of "stewardship" is to forcefully redistribute address space to improve "welfare" (for whatever your definition of "welfare" might be), I suspect you'll find the larger members of the community might disagree and they have _far_ more money, lawyers, lobbyists, and political power than ARIN.

If you're not thinking of forceful redistribution, you have a small number of months of IPv4 free pool left, so what are you worried about again?

> That's something the FCC should have done instead of squandering a few big handy dandy spectrums by "auction" which is no more than a purchase to the highest bidder that automatically precludes Drake's cellular, or the Jones Family Cellular startup company from getting a couple of megahertz to "start slow and build up".

And why do you think the FCC would have done that (and why would you think the Internet would be different)?

By all means, keep needs-based justification in place -- I doubt it'll be possible to get consensus on removing it before it _simply does not matter_.

Regards,
-drc