[ppml] Policy Proposal: IPv4 Soft Landing

[David Conrad]

Rich,

On May 17, 2007, at 9:39 AM, Rich Emmings wrote:
>> Hmm.  I'm curious what you see as the idea that was poorly  
>> conceived in
>> 2007-12 and weren't addressed in Soft Landing.
> Creation of artificially early dates for restriction to resources will
> increase demand for those resources earlier.

"Soft Landing" does not impose dates.

> I think the existing ARIN policies have done a great job at  
> encouraging those who can start, to start, but you can't push a rope

[examples of why deploying IPv6 today is hard]

If you read the proposal, you'll see that requirements to demonstrate  
IPv6 services and connectivity don't come into play until phase 2 or  
3 which don't take effect until there are only 30 /8s and 20 /8s  
respectively left in the IANA free pool.  Prior to this, ISPs  
requesting IPv4 space would need to document their plans to deploy  
IPv6.  The point of this is to get people to start seriously thinking  
about deploying IPv6.

>> Fortunately(?), IPv4 space scarcity isn't artificial.
> But pushing up the date when we limit assignments is artificial  
> exhaustion.

As stated previously, "Soft Landing" doesn't have dates, it has  
thresholds tied to the amount of space available in the IANA free  
pool.  It tries to provide a smooth transition from "IPv4 available  
from the free pool" to "IPv4 unavailable from the free pool" by  
encouraging increased v4 efficiency and v6 deployment.

> Call it hoarding, or call rationing, but it's artificial.

Rationing is one approach to managing scarcity on the supply side.   
Hoarding is an approach on the demand side.  Yes, it is artificial in  
the sense that it is imposed by people in reaction to the stimulus of  
unavailability of resource.  The alternative is to pretend IPv4 isn't  
scarce.  I'm not sure the Ostrich approach will benefit anyone, even  
if it were feasible.

Rgds,
-drc