[ppml] NANOG IPv4 Exhaustion BoF

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

> At IPv4 runout in the ARIN region, the world does not get set 
> in stone, but ARIN's records become set in stone, since there 
> is, at present, no way to transfer those records between 
> parties. 

Give your head a shake...
At present there are two mechanisms that are regularly used to
transfer ARIN records between two parties. The most common one
is acquisition, where one company buys all or part of another
company. The second mechanism, is where a company returns 
unneeded IP addresses to ARIN, who then pass them on to someone
who needs them.

This last mechanism is not broken and can be expected to be used
more frequently as IPv6 deployment picks up steam. Before that
point in time, I can't see why any organization would want to
sell address blocks to someone else, and after that point in time
I can't see why anyone would want to buy address blocks. 

How are you gonna have a market when you start with zero supply
and then suddenly shift to zero demand when the supply begins to
appear. Futures contracts? If so then you are smack dab in SEC
regulatory territory.

> More specifialy, I support this policy as written.  I think 
> there are some flaws in it, but those can be corrected as the 
> actual implementation time approaches, and before demand gets 
> very large.  We need some sort of transfer policy that 
> balances corporate needs with the tendency towards a 
> speculative market. 

No, we don't need a transfer policy. We need to make it clear that
IPv4 addresses have no value except when used in the network, and
that as the global free pool nears exhaustion, so does the supply
of unused IPv4 adddresses. When we run out of free addresses for
ARIN to allocate, then nobody else will have any addresses to
spare.

Unless, of course, some of the AC members or BoT members have legacy
allocations that they don't actually need. Given that this transfer
policy only benefits the legacy holders whose allocations are 
not technically justified, I think that it is time for ARIN AC
members and ARIN BoT members to come clean, and individually, one
by one, issue public statements as to whether or not they hold legacy
allocations, either directly or indirectly through corporate ownerships.
Also, whether or not their employer holds such legacy blocks, directly
or indirectly.

--Michael Dillon