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

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

> 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.

I have worked for two different telecoms companies in the past who both
had "cash leakage" problems caused by not cancelling circuits when
customers left, or upgraded to higher bandwidth. In one of these
companies we were spending 2.5 million dollars per month on these
unneeded circuits for several years. When it came to light that money
was draining away, both companies did begin a program of identifying
these circuits and cancelling them.

I am certain that in most of the largest ARIN members, there are similar
stocks of unused IP addresses that have been lost in the system. But
because there is no telltale cash leakage to alert people to the
existence of the lost addresses, there is little motivation to mount an
expedition to seek out and recover these addresses. But, in a few years,
there will be motivation.

We should just wait until the natural course of events provides the
motivation for cleaning out dusty corners and shifting some network
services onto IPv6.

--Michael Dillon