[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal 2008-6: Emergency TransferPolicyfor IPv4 Addresses - Last Call

[Stephen Sprunk]

Craig Finseth wrote:
>    Kevin Kargel wrote:
>
>    > This still does not obviate the fact that the effect of any
>    > peer-peer transfer policy will be to create an artificial
>    > commodity market for IP addresses, remove recyclable IP addresses
>    > from the fair-chase realm and will force everyone to pay every
>    > penny the market will bear for an IP address.
>    >   
>
>    So you'd prefer a world where IP(v4) addresses can't be had at _any_ 
>    price because there is no incentive for those with excess space to 
>    return any?
>
> IMHO, there will be very few people willing to sell addresses to me at
> a rate that I can afford, given that there are much larger players who
> are willing to pay more to keep me out of the market.
>   

What "larger players" are interested in keeping the State of Minnesota 
"out of the market"?

True, it may be possible that the price will be more than your 
organization can afford -- in which case you'll go to IPv6 and, perhaps, 
get a small "transition" assignment from ARIN for NAT-PT if you don't 
have any other space already or available from your upstream(s) that can 
be used for that purpose.

OTOH, the market will be unable to supply the mega-ISPs with space for 
long, if at all, simply because of their voracious appetites.  They will 
be weighing the cost (and odds) of acquiring space on the open market 
with the cost of moving to IPv6, and IMHO they will, in short order, 
decide that the latter option is cheaper.  Smaller orgs that do not have 
the market power to demand their vendors adopt IPv6 will be able to 
survive on the space that is available on the market -- including what 
the mega-ISPs are able to sell off once their IPv6 transition is underway.

>    > I know this will bring vicious flames from those wanting to make
>    > profits trading IP addresses,
>
>    Many, many folks have an entirely different motive: freeing up address 
>    space that _other_ people currently hold.  I have no profit interest in 
>    address markets; I just want to make sure that, if someone wants 
>    addresses badly enough, they are able to get them.  I do not feel that, 
>    without incentive, the people who have them currently will be willing to 
>    part with them -- and what legal authority ARIN has to forcibly take 
>    them (to give to others) is, for now at least, unclear.
>
> Personally, I think that a transfer policy will achieve the goal of
> enabling hoarders: in other words, they will go to the people who can
> pay more for them than to the people who will use them.
>   

The policy still requires that the recipient justify the space they are 
to receive, so I'm not sure I agree with this statement.  Of course, 
there is a wide gap between what is "justified" and what is truly 
"required"; you can "justify" public space for hosts that can as easily 
be put behind a NAT box on RFC 1918 space, so wiggle room does exist, 
but why would someone pay an (according to you) exorbitant price for 
something they do not plan to use nor which will have much value in a 
few years after the IPv6 transition is actually underway?

> And the people who can pay more for them are the larger players, and this will give them a _dis_incentive to go to IPv6.
>   

My view is that they will go to IPv6 as soon as it's cheaper than 
staying on IPv4.  An address market which increases the cost of the 
latter will, hopefully, pull in that date rather than push it out.

>    > but I honestly do not believe it would be good for the community.
>    >   
>
>    Do you really think complete IPv4 exhaustion is better for the 
>    community?  Or a widespread black market of address sales that _aren't_ 
>    registered with ARIN?  Those are the only two other options and, as much 
>    as I dislike the idea of an address market, I believe it to be less bad 
>    than the alternatives.
>
> The black market exists on a small scale, but I don't see the larger
> players participating.  For example, I don't see major US ISPs buying
> addresses on the black market.
>   

... because they don't need to.  The only reason I can think of 
participating in the black market today is if one _can't_ justify 
address space and therefore get it for next to nothing from ARIN.  That 
will change, though, when ARIN no longer has any more space to give away.

S
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