[ppml] don't eat the last Tuna! PP-2007-6

[bmanning at karoshi.com]

I've never been entirely comfortable w/ the intimation, perhaps encouraged
by Geoffs sensational graphics and "the sky is falling faster than you thought"
presentations, that the community was about to make IPv4 extinct. ... e.g.
treating IPv4 as a commodity.  Its not.

To borrow a fishing analogy, we are not about to eat the last tuna.

It might be more realistic to view IPv4 and IPv6 as two blocks of spectrum,
or two blocks of real estate.

To date, ARIN polices have been constructed around a "frontier" model, where
there was always enough open space/land "out there" to go greenfield in new
areas when we had used up the old area...  for some definition of "used".
There has been some pushback in the request/demand for justification before
being allowed to move into new space, but those justifications are malliable.

The transitional state we are in (or approching) ...  is much like the tension
between ranchers and farmers in the 1800's in the US.  Ranchers hate the fences.

lets say we have one block of realestate, 15,000,000 sqm, centered at
35degrees 40'05 North, 139degrees 49'25 East ...  we'll call that the 
analog of IPv4.

I posit that it is hard to get a right to use for 10,000 sqm in that space.
there are real costs, perhaps the need to track down the holders of rights
to use for many smaller blocks of 1000 sqm and perhaps even 100 sqm  blocks.
And it might be prudent to consider that the most effective use of space is
to understand that nearly no-one will need/can afford to aquire the RTU for
10,000 sqm in that space.  There will be a need to track RTU for very small
chucks of space (anyone uncomfortable w/ renting by the sqm/sqf these days?
there are places, London, NYC and perhaps otheres, where you can find spaces
that rent for the sqcm/sqinch) ...  so if this analog holds, I would expect
ARIN to eventually evolve policies to recognise /24 blocks and even /30
blocks... The farmers win. :)  Prediction:  Something like this policy will
be back until we deal w/ it.

What about those ranchers who want unfenced, frontiers to build new - exciting
things with a different risk profile?  My I suggest the other 15,000,000 sqm 
block - 36degrees 32'23 North, 114degrees 26'35 West.  Lots of open room to 
breath/grow/expand ... try out new things.  If i REALLY need 10,000 sqm, this
is a place where its fairly easy to get that space in a single larger chunk.
Perhaps this is a decent analog of IPv6.

So, I think that a revisit of a proposal/policy of this kind is eventually 
inevitable.  I also think that we may have to deal w/ two types of policies,
one for dense, steady-state systems like IPv4 is becoming, and one for sparse
open-ended systems like IPv6.  

Wacky Idea:  Most of our existing policy assumptions work just fine for IPv6
and we need to change the basis on which we do IPv4 policy.

YMMV of course.

--bill