[ppml] NANOG IPv4 Exhaustion BoF

[Scott Leibrand]

Tom Vest wrote:
> If the largest ISPs rush out and buy up as much IPv4 as they can  
> today, in anticipation of "need" they know they'll have in the future  
> -- but also thereby get out ahead other operators that also have  
> "need" today -- isn't that a kind of hoarding? When any buying today  
> exceeds "need" today, it has a distorting -- inflationary and  
> anticompetitive -- effect regardless of whether that was the primary  
> goal or just a convenient side-effect.
> 
> Anyone who assumes the kind of operator behavior that makes markets  
> absolutely inevitable, should also assume that hoarding for  
> profiteering or simply to keep down the competition will be the norm.  
> Anyone who assumes the kind of operator behavior that makes markets  
> absolutely inevitable, should also assume that any countervailing  
> rules that can be easily bypassed without consequence (i.e.,  
> "ineffective" rules) will be ignored.

This is definitely one of the problems we're trying to avoid with the 
conditions in the transfer policy proposal.  It's clear to me that 
ARIN's current need-based policies are doing a good job of preventing 
ISPs from rushing out and getting (for free) a lot more IPv4 addresses 
than they need, so I believe that requiring similar justification to get 
IPv4 addresses via transfer will also work well.

Do you see any of transfer conditions in the proposal as "countervailing 
rules that can be easily bypassed without consequence (i.e., 
"ineffective" rules)"?  If so, why do you think they'd be ineffective?

Thanks,
Scott