[arin-ppml] Ted's Comment on 2009-2

[Scott Beuker]

> I'm under no illusions that qwest.net is the slightest bit concerned
> about losing DSL customers to us. ;-)

Almost all big orgs are concerned about losing customers to anyone else,
big or small, because customer retention is what makes them a successful
and therefore large company. Any company not concerned about losing
customers to their competition will pay the price eventually. Don't kid
yourself into thinking big companies are foolish and naive.

> Keep in mind that it's NOT the small orgs who were at the ARIN meeting
> who are the ones I'm concerned about.  THEY are among the ones who
will
> be
> up
> and willing and ready for IPv6.  It's the ones who are completely
> oblivious
> to
> what's going on right now - many of these may not even have their own
> portable numbers yet.

ARIN have a lot of work on the go to spread the word about IPv6 to
the industry. It's not the responsibility of the larger networks to bear
the burden for organizations who aren't paying attention to the
industry. Not to mention that such organizations are not limited to
small (< /20 using) anyway, and a /9 set aside is extremely excessive
for such a purpose. Creating an unfair market that favors new entrants
above existing participants is setting ARIN up for a lawsuit.

To be honest, it's hard to see these arguments as anything other than
an excuse for small orgs supporting this policy to reserve IP space for
themselves, until such purposes are reflected in the policy proposal.

If this is your actual intention in supporting this policy,
then put it in writing and develop a policy that reserves this space
for companies that haven't received IP space from ARIN since 2007. If
that were written into the policy, I'd find this argument much more
credible. In my opinion, any responsible ARIN community member should
not support policy proposals with major unintended consequences outside
of the consequences you support. That, to me, is a policy ripe to be
sent back to the author to be refined.

> 
> I really fear that if we do not have the dribs and drabs of IPv4 that
> are
> left after runout available for these orgs, or if available but priced
> in
> the stratosphere, that some of them will be harmed.

Everyone will be harmed when exhaustion hits, there's no way around
that.
The idea is that we're all in this together, and any attempts to change
that sabotage the chances of the community working in unison to get IPv6
off the ground in time.

First of all, withholding IPv4 doesn't motivate companies to IPv6.
At this point, you need to deploy IPv6 so that your customers have
access to new content and applications, regardless of whether you have
some IPv4 address space left. Windows 7 will have functionality in it
that will only work with IPv6; will your customers be able to use it?
Anyone who can't see that their need to deploy IPv6 has been decoupled
from their IPv4 supply needs to pay closer attention to the industry.

Second of all, large ISPs do not drive IPv6 adoption. If you recall,
the saying is "If you build it, they will come", not the other way
around. A major reason our customers do not have IPv6 today is because
if we gave it to them they'd ask "what is this useful for?" and we
couldn't give them a good answer. Did your less technical savvy friends
and family buy an HDTV before or after HD channels came to market? The
content providers, who give Joe and Mary Public a use for this confusing
new IPv6 thing, are oft recipients of /20 or smaller. We need them in
this game with us, and as concerned about deploying IPv6 as they can be.

- Scott Beuker