[ppml] alternative realities

[Stephen Sprunk]

Thus spake "Kevin Kargel" <kkargel at polartel.com>
> I have a hard time accepting any philosophy that says "just make
> it more expensive because your can"..

I, too, disagree with that.  However, the reality is that for most 
operators, v4 is going to rapidly grow in cost no matter what we do.  The 
laissez-faire types are saying that we should just wait for it to happen and 
that will be the motivation for people to migrate to v6.  However, I 
personally think that's too late, and that it's reasonable to consider 
trying to smooth out those costs so that people can see what's coming and 
get v6 ready before the combined cost of keeping v4 running _and_ trying to 
roll out v6 bankrupts them.

> What you will do by artificially jacking v4 prices is rape the small
> shops and drive them out of business.  Maybe that is your intent, to
> leave consumers with nobody to deal with but the mega-ISP's..
> personally I think that is a pretty sad way to think about it.

Part of the problem is that the smaller folks, and those that conserve, are 
punished by the current fee schedule but those who consume massive amounts 
(80% of the total) address space pay _virtually nothing_ for waste.  If we 
were to rationalize the fees, such that everyone paid the same, the fees of 
smaller, cash-strapped businesses would go _down_ while the space hogs would 
be motivated to provide the desperately-needed critical mass of v6 
deployment.

> There is nothing evil about leaving IPv4 in place.  If you don't want to
> use it then don't use it.  People will migrate to v6 as content does,
> and as hardware evolves to handle it.  This will be a natural and
> unavoidable transition.

It's not unavoidable; it's entirely possible that the Internet will evolve 
into a multi-layered v4 NAT network with the vast majority of endpoints 
being second-class "client-only" hosts and absurd costs for getting 
first-class server address space.  Keep in mind that certain ISPs benefit 
from this and it fits the thinking of their Bell-shaped heads.

S

Stephen Sprunk      "Those people who think they know everything
CCIE #3723         are a great annoyance to those of us who do."
K5SSS                                             --Isaac Asimov