[ppml] Policy Proposal: IPv4 Soft Landing

[John Paul Morrison]

There's absolutely no incentive to adopt IPv6. Everyone who needs IPv4 
addresses essentially already has them, or has the money to acquire 
someone who does if they need more. Is an IPv4 shortage really going to 
stop Google, Microsoft, MCI or a large cable/xDSL service provider from 
doing business?

Giving out more IPv4 addresses just makes the IPv4 club bigger. The day 
the last IPv4 address is used up, the existing IPv4 Internet doesn't 
cease to exist, it'll be business as usual for the millions of users and 
existing services. New users won't be shut out, they'll just be second 
class citizens and by that time they may not realize it or even care.

NAT and as yet undreamed of "technologies" (kludges) designed to 
preserve IPv4 will be in full swing to keep business as usual. RFC 3021 
is one example, RFC 3489 an even better one.

The only carrot is IPv4 addresses, and for a soft landing, you need to 
make new IPv4 address space conditional on deploying IPv6. Even 
deliberately "wasting" IPv4 space could be strategic in prompting 
adoption of IPv6 - this could be in the form of waiving regulations and 
paperwork for service providers who have working IPv6 networks. What is 
the point of efficiently utilizing and managing IPv4 space if it simply 
preserves the status quo?

At some point, a large ISP or hosting provider should be able to 
demonstrate that they broadly offer IPv6 DHCP to end users, and have 
IPv6 accessible DNS and Web services before receiving new IPv4 space.  
The bigger the existing IPv4 allocation, the more they have at stake it 
terms of customers and one presumes, of budgets, implementation skills 
and of an obligation of sorts to adopt IPv6.  Conversely, someone with a 
smaller or no existing IPv4 allocation has no impact at all if they are 
an early adopter or have IPv6 as some precondition.




David Conrad wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On May 11, 2007, at 9:06 AM, David Williamson wrote:
>   
>> On Fri, May 11, 2007 at 04:14:31AM -0400, Member Services wrote:
>>     
>>> Policy Proposal Name: IPv4 Soft Landing
>>>       
>> This is, by far, the best idea I've seen along these lines.
>>     
>
> Thanks.
>
>   
>> The
>> staging would enforce a gradual buildup in requirements for further
>> IPv4 allocations, and provides a nice 'carrot and stick' approach to
>> forcing migration to IPv6.
>>     
>
> Actually, it is more of a "growing stick" approach.  The carrot is  
> handled elsewhere (e.g., waiver of IPv6 fees).
>
>   
>> Still, as much as I'd like to say I'm in favor of this proposal, I'm
>> hesitant to do so.  On philophical grounds, I'm not sure that a soft
>> landing is strictly necessary.  When we run out of IPv4 space, we run
>> out of space.  Once we're out, does it matter if the landing was hard
>> or soft?
>>     
>
> Yes, very, VERY much so.
>
> The issue here is that Internet resource management does not operate  
> in a vacuum.  There is constant pressure that most of you all don't  
> see for Internet resource management to be done by "professionals",  
> e.g., within national governments, the ITU, other international or  
> inter-governmental treaty organizations, etc.  Failure to adequately  
> provide for at least some semblance of a reasonable transition from  
> Internet v1 to Internet v2 will be used as justification for a  
> fundamental restructuring of how Internet resource management is done.
>
> To date, there have been no proposals that explicitly try to drive  
> increased deployment of IPv6 as a means to get over the chicken-and- 
> egg problem that has hindered the deployment of IPv6.  "IPv4 Soft  
> Landing" is a first, undoubtedly flawed attempt to try to provide  
> real incentive for a transition.
>
>   
>> As long as we can walk away, it's a good landing, and IPv6
>> provides an alternative network protocol.  If your organization gets
>> screwed by the lack of IPv4 space, perhaps you should have been  
>> looking
>> at IPv6 earlier.
>>     
>
> "Hi Grandma.  You can't send e-mail?  Well, of course not.  You  
> didn't deploy IPv6 on your home router.  What were you thinking?!   
> Sheesh.  By the way, how's that new IP-monitored pacemaker working?   
> Err, hello?  Hello?"
>
> The vast majority of people using the Internet are not aware and if  
> they were would not care about whether they are using IPv4 or IPv6.   
> What the vast majority of people using the Internet care about is  
> reaching the content that is relevant to them.  Saying "you should've  
> known better" when an infrastructure that national economies depend  
> on runs into trouble is the right approach if you want governments  
> involved.
>
> IPv6 has created a second Internet.  Unfortunately, all the services  
> and content are still on the old Internet.  As long as there is no  
> incentive to start populating the Second Internet, people are not  
> going to migrate.  Got to break the chicken-and-egg problem somehow...
>
>   
>> The other reason I don't think I can quite endorse this proposal is
>> that it is entirely focused on ISPs and PA space.  There's no mention
>> of how PI assignments might be handled, and I think that's a fatal
>> flaw.  Perhaps a revision to account for that is in order.  I'm told
>> that very few PI applicants come back for more space, so we'd have to
>> have a phased policy change that forces initial assignments to be much
>> more difficult to get.  (And additional space, too, of course.)
>>     
>
> This would go against current trends of liberalizing PI allocation  
> policies in all RIRs.
>
> One reason I didn't include PI in this proposal is that it was my  
> impression that PI allocations make up a really, really tiny of all  
> address space that is allocated.  I thought it best to go for the big  
> targets first.  It may be that my assumptions were wrong... ARIN  
> staff might be able to provide input on this.
>
> However, with that said, I'm happy to revise the proposal to include  
> a second section that deals with PI.  Or, perhaps better, provide a  
> second proposal as adding a second section might trigger Michael  
> Dillon's "too complicated, too long" rants (:-)).  (Those rants, by  
> the way, I generally agree with -- policies should be short and to  
> the point).
>
> Rgds,
> -drc
>
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