[arin-ppml] "Millions of Internet Addresses Are Lying Idle" (slashdot)

[Ron Cleven]

I think this whole line of conversation is missing the point.  One has 
to honestly and simply discuss the reasons that IPv6 has not yet taken 
hold yet, and why it will not have taken hold in 12 months from now. 
Until and unless someone can describe, in simple layman's terms, a 
rational transition plan to IPv6, I don't see it happening.

1) What are the largest barriers that will prevent widescale adoption of 
IPv6 in the next 12 months or whatever timeframe (the biggest one seems 
to be we haven't hit the wall yet, in spite of idiotic management of IP 
resources)?

2) How can the transition be simplified?

3) Most importantly, how can the transition be incentified?

There are a lot of smart people on this list, but you need to step back 
from your techno-jargon and put your collective brains to use to deal 
with practical issues.

You could start incentifying the transition to IPv6 by removing the 
"economies of scale" on IPv4 allocations (which provides precisely the 
wrong incentive, talk about STUPID policy!).  The annual renewal of all 
IPv4 allocations should cost the same per ip address, whether you have 
256 ip's or 16 million.  And, yeah, I'm tired of hearing from all those 
arrogant entities who happened to acquire their addresses before ARIN 
had any of their ducks in a row.  Get over it.  This should be a 
technical battle, not a legal one.

Anyway, once the renewal costs were equalized, then ARIN, et al, should 
ratchet up those annual renewal costs until IPv4 address space usage 
reaches steady-state.  This would not solve the transition issues, but 
it would provide the economic incentive for all you really smart people 
to figure it out.






Paul Vixie wrote:
>>>no action of that kind can change the inevitability of runout, nor
>>>change the short term expedients for all connected networks.  so, why
>>>bother?
>>
>>I saw a lot of projections about what bigger providers would be forced to
>>do in short-term runout, prior to wide availability of IPv6.  Not a
>>single person in the room said that multi-level provider-wide NATs would
>>make the world a better place.
> 
> 
> and yet that is also inevitable.  in the theoretical case you cite where some
> currently unused space is put into use (some say by reclaimation, others say
> by return, others by a "market") it changes only the date at which runout will
> occur, not the inevitability of such a runout.  sooner or later we get runout
> and it will bring with it deaggregation, double/triple NAT, and panicked IPv6.
> 
> 
>>The amount of effort involved in reclaiming completely unused blocks is
>><= one full time person for a year.  That's a small cost for an
>>extension.
> 
> 
> i fear that at this point the stage is set by monetary expecations, and those
> address blocks which could if recirculated set back the runout date by months
> or at most a year, will be closely held by those hoping that a market appears.
> to expect that one full time person working less than one year would be able
> to counter and/or reset that expectation seems incredibly unrealistic.
> 
> this is why to me the most salient of underexposed positions among those with
> runout proposals is: do they consider IPv6 inevitable, or do they think that
> some combination of deaggregation plus NAT plus their proposal could make IPv4
> last forever or at least last until something other than IPv6 can develope?
> i really think the community deserves to know/evaluate/choose *that* agenda.
> _______________________________________________