[ppml] Address Space versus Routing Slots

[Scott Leibrand]

On 05/08/06 at 9:04am +0100, Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com wrote:

> > and his participation on the ARIN public policy mailing list
> > (participation in which isn't restricted to the ARIN region, BTW),
> > doesn't constitute "interference".
>
> I never said that he should be kicked off the list.
> Better to have opinions aired in public and discussed
> in public rather than in the backrooms.

Ok, cool.

> What about the CONTENT of Geoff's message or
> the CONTENT of my message? What do you think of
> that?

My take on the "what happens when the IANA and the RIRs run out of new
space to give" is that we will likely end up with the buying and selling
of IPv4 netblocks.  As has been stated, the presence of a cheap substitute
(IPv6) will likely keep the price for IPv4 netblocks down, but there will
still be folks with a perceived "need" for IPv4 space.

I don't like the idea of creating property rights for IPv4 addresses (and
giving title to existing holders).  However, I do think we'll have to
legitimize a market for transferring registrations between organizations
when said organizations contractually agree to do so (for monetary
considerations or otherwise).  If we put in place reasonable policies for
such transfers, I think we reduce the likelihood of the courts stepping in
and turning IP addresses into property.

It may also be worthwhile for ARIN to regulate the manner in which
netblocks may be subdivided.  For example, if you are a /16 holder and
want to transfer a /22, ARIN might reasonably require that you start from
either the beginning or the end of your netblock range, so that only one
record is required in WHOIS for each resulting netblock (as opposed to 3
total if the transferred /22 is out of the middle of the block).  This
will also help somewhat with maintaining CIDR aggregation.

-Scott