[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal 2008-6

[Scott Leibrand]

Kevin Kargel wrote:
> There will be (are) many small businesses who
> will need IP addresses and depend on them for their business who will not be
> able to afford them.  This tips the balance heavily in the favor of the big
> players and against the small guy and against the consumer who will
> ultimately have to pay for it.
>   

Why do big ISPs need addresses?  Mostly, it's to give them out to their 
residential and small business customers.  If the price gets too high 
and those customers aren't willing to pay for real public IPs, the ISPs 
will do something else (IPv6 + some sort of NAT for IPv4, most likely).  
(FWIW, most small businesses don't qualify for space from ARIN anyway.  
Some medium sized businesses do.)

After IPv4 free pool exhaustion, there are basically two possibilities 
for getting IPv4 addresses.  One is that IPv4 addresses will only be 
available as PA space from providers who already have addresses.  The 
other is a choice between PA from providers who have it, or paying 
someone (who's not a provider) to free up space and make it available 
(either directly, via a transfer policy, or indirectly, via something 
like Leo's proposal).  As far as I can tell, having both choices is 
better for small and medium sized businesses than having only one.

-Scott