[ppml] Proposed Policy: IPv4 Countdown

[Howard, W. Lee]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:ppml-bounces at arin.net] On 
> Behalf Of william(at)elan.net
> Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2007 12:57 AM
> To: Stephen Sprunk
> Cc: ARIN PPML
> Subject: Re: [ppml] Proposed Policy: IPv4 Countdown
> 
> 
> On Fri, 16 Mar 2007, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
> 
> > We do not have a choice.  The IPv4 address space _will_ be 
> exhausted, 
> > and it'll happen in about four years if we do nothing.
> 
> 4-5 years are projections when IANA may not be able to fulfil 
> request by RIR for new /8 which I personally think would be 
> closer to 6. Most RIRs request space in advance and have some 
> space in reserve up to 2 years and there is also space 
> unfilled from legacy class-b blocks that RIR at that point 
> will most likely start to use all together.

It all depends on how you define "run out."  "Who" runs out of
"what"?  
	IANA is unable to allocate a /8 block in the 0-223 range
	in response to an RIR request
	One RIR is unable to allocate a /13 in response to a 
	request.
	One RIR is unable to allocate a /(some number between 14 
	and 24) in response to a request.
	No RIR is able to make allocations or assignments in 
	response to requests.
 
> > The best projections, by people who are quite authoritative on the 
> > matter, is that reclamation will buy us six more months.
> 
> It will "buy" more time - closer to 3-4 years probably. If 
> you're looking for numbers, currently 65% of Class-A,B,C 
> (1.0.0.0-223.255.255.255) is allocated and of that 45% is 
> routed leaving 20% as not routed (which has some amount in 
> use internally but I'd be surprised if its even 1/4th of 
> that) which means potentially equivalent of 46 /8 blocks 
> could be reclaimed right now (and those numbers will grow 
> too). But if we want do do reclamation such decision better 
> be made soon and process start as well.
> 
> For reference where I calculate the numbers, see
>   http://www.completewhois.com/statistics/ip_statistics.htm

A useful analysis, thank you.

See also http://www.arin.net/statistics/index.html
http://www.arin.net/statistics/historical.html
http://www.arin.net/statistics/jointstats.pdf

You can draw your own curve and decide what you think the burn
rate is.  Note that in the last document above, the "IPv4 
Allocations: RIRs to LIRs/ISPs" chart is YTD September 2006.
There will be an update in Puerto Rice, I'm sure.

Lee