[ppml] Policy Proposal: 2007-12 IPv4 Countdown Policy Proposal

[David Conrad]

Hi,

On Mar 21, 2007, at 1:47 PM, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
>> People don't like the fact that IPv4 is ending, period.
> IPv4 isn't ending; it's approaching the inherent limits of growth.

It isn't even that.  The IPv4 _FREE POOL as administered by IANA and  
the RIRs_ is being exhausted.  That's all.

There is lots of unused address space locked away in legacy (and not  
so legacy) allocations.  I imagine that address space is increasingly  
going to come into play as folks find they are not able to obtain  
addresses via "traditional" means.

Looking at the Routing Analysis sent out by APNIC (as of March 16,  
2007):

     Percentage of available address space announced:               45.6
     Percentage of allocated address space announced:               62.6
     Percentage of available address space allocated:               72.8

So, about half the IPv4 address space is not yet even announced.  As  
real addressing costs (that is, a cost not hidden by the  
administrative overhead of dealing with RIR bureaucracy) become more  
apparent to address space users (read: as the black market turns  
grey), I would imagine individual demand for addresses will  
_decrease_ (although with the continued growth of the Internet,  
aggregate demand will likely continue to increase, albeit perhaps not  
as quickly).  Additionally, people will likely begin to see that  
client-only/firewalled machines don't really need publicly routed  
address space, thus freeing up even some of the already announced  
space for reuse (router jockeys, start your upgrade engines now!).

It seems irrational (to put it mildly) to me to suggest creating an  
arbitrary cut-off date for IPv4 allocations.  A more rational  
approach would be to increase the restrictions on allocations  
relative to the amount of unassigned address space remaining (that  
is, rationing) in order to promote increased efficiency and  
innovation in addressing technologies.

Rgds,
-drc