[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal 93: Predicable IPv4 Run Out by Prefix Size - Revised

[Tom Vest]

On Jun 19, 2009, at 3:27 AM, <michael.dillon at bt.com> <michael.dillon at bt.com 
 > wrote:

>
>
>> At a bare minimum, new entrants must be safeguarded.
>
> Not in the end-game.

How do you justify this assertion?
Do you think that accepting industry closure to new entry is a good  
idea in general?
Do you think that the current balance of internal (i.e., current  
member) and external stakeholder interests, which favors the existing  
industry coordination arrangements, will survive that development?

> In any case, there is plenty of IPv6 for new entrants so ARIN is  
> safeguarding them.

I'm glad that IANA didn't think that way thirty years ago: "256 /8  
recipients could easily support plenty of future customers, so the  
system is safeguarding them."

I'm glad that the internal stakeholders didn't think that way fifteen  
years ago: "there's no shortage of private addressing options for new  
entrants, so the system is safeguarding them."

The fiction that IPv6 is substitutable for IPv4 *today* will not hold;  
it will never hold until it ceases to be fiction. The timing of that  
development will be wholly determined by incumbent IPv4 holders.

> Remember that IPv4 runout causes a certain amount of chaos
> and only the most foolish investors would fund a new entrant
> into a dying game during a period of chaos, when there is
> a new game already running with future prospects and no
> chaos.

How many investors were still funding real estate speculation in Q4  
2007?
Why didn't the wise, farsighted investors who knew better save the  
system by shorting all of the crazy ideas and deflating the bubble  
before it was too late?
We will not be saved by the farsightedness and deep wisdom of outside  
observers/investors.

The chaos and "dying game" that you're describing will be internal to  
current IPv4-based operators, who need to decide out what to do next.  
The most visible/prominent manifestation that the runout will have in  
the broader context will be the stories of what happens to the next  
generation of aspiring operators who find out what our version of  
"safeguarding them" really means.

I'm glad that other industries aren't guided by this kind of  
reasoning; there would be a lot more engineered chaos, and a lot fewer  
competitive markets in the world.

TV