[ppml] NANOG IPv4 Exhaustion BoF

[Scott Leibrand]

michael.dillon at bt.com wrote:

> 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. 

There's this concept called an incentive, and in our capitalist economy 
one of the most common and effective incentives is a monetary one.  If 
an organization can get paid to renumber out of some of their address 
space and transfer it, that is a good incentive to do so.

> 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.

Again, there's an economic concept of a supply curve and a demand curve 
that pertain here.  Right now, supply is zero because the price is zero. 
    As price start to rise, supply will increase and demand will 
decrease, it's just a question of how much, and at what price they'll 
reach equilibrium.

> Futures contracts? If so then you are smack dab in SEC
> regulatory territory.

I don't see how futures contracts would be useful in this kind of market.

>> 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.

Yes, free (as in $$) addresses will run out.  But I can assure you that 
if they can make a profit doing so, many businesses will find that they 
can do without some of their IPv4 addresses, perhaps as part of a 
transition to IPv6, and/or by using NAT for remaining IPv4 connectivity. 
  Therefore, addresses can remain available: they just won't be free.

> 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.

I don't believe that any of the advocates of this proposal are doing so 
out of any interest in selling off their own IPv4 address holdings.

I personally do not hold any IP addresses.  My employer is an LIR, 
holds a number of non-legacy allocations from ARIN, and continues to 
receive additional allocations to support continued growth.

If I have any personal interest in an IPv4 transfer market, it is in 
ensuring that companies with continued need for IPv4 addresses will be 
able to continue obtaining them after free pool exhaustion.  I believe 
that this is a shared interest of most of ARIN's membership and the 
wider community.

-Scott