[arin-ppml] Q1 - ARIN address transfer policy: why the triggerdate?

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

> > As for the cost benefit issue, sometimes you just have to see the 
> > writing on the wall and realize that you will have to spend 
> money sooner or later. ...
> 
> alas, not in america for the last couple of decades.  it's 
> all about current quarter or in-year revenue and expense.

This is a global disease known as MBA that inflicts most countries.

> the most that many large companies can do at this point is 
> make sure they know what they will do at RIR runout, and 
> trigger that plan at IANA runout.  that may not sound like 
> much but it's way more than medium-to-small companies will 
> do, which is: sit tight, wait for an ipv6 internet to appear 
> through the efforts of larger better-funded companies, and 
> assume that the dribs and drabs of ipv4 space needed by small 
> companies will not be of any interest to the large companies, 
> so feel "safe".

Why do you feel it will be different from the commercialization
of the Internet? In that era, the large telcos were the first
to do something with IPv4 in the lab, but they were outrun by the
smaller companies that got a product to market as quickly as
they could. In the end, the large telcos did get their Internet
services rolled out, and they mostly ended up buying the small 
fry.

Why won't the IPv6 wave start with smaller more nimble companies
who are not afraid of rolling out an IPv4-IPv6 gateway service
that has a bugs? 

> in this part of the analysis, there's good symmetry between 
> "can afford to be an early mover" and "is so large and with 
> so much organizational inertia that being a late mover would 
> be fatal".  in other words the smaller entities who can't 
> afford to invest in ipv6 until there's an in-year or 
> in-quarter motive to do so, are also the ones who can do so 
> the quickest when their time comes, and the "dribs and drabs" 
> of ipv4 space that the big guys won't be able to use, will 
> tide the little guys over just fine.

Fair enough. But this implies that the small guys should not
be waiting for the big guys (aka upstreams) to take the first
steps. In fact, there may be a business case for IPv6 peering
over GRE tunnels through an IPv4 upstream network as one element
in a large bag of tricks.

--Michael Dillon