[arin-ppml] Mighten it happen like this?

[Milton L Mueller]

Nice. You're starting to think like an economist.  

<that's a compliment, don't go ballistic. Gobble, gobble>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On
> Behalf Of Ted Mittelstaedt
> Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 6:06 PM
> To: 'ARIN PPML'
> Subject: [arin-ppml] Mighten it happen like this?
> 
> 
> In thinking about this IPv4 runout it occurs to me that it might possible
> go something like this.
> 
> After the last /8 is assigned to ARIN, the hostmasters there will get out
> their knives and start slicing off subnets from it.  A handful of Very
> Large
> requests will be satisfied from it, then a lot more smaller requests, then
> the /8 will be as the turkey is on the platter during the last
> Thanksgiving
> -
> the large breasts gutted but still plenty of edible meat in smaller
> chunks.
> 
> Then the reclamation efforts will start turning up even smaller and
> smaller
> chunks of IPv4 abandonded years earlier - nothing to satisfy the large
> consumers,
> but still plenty of smaller tasty bits.  And in the meantime they will
> still
> be stripping the carcass of the /8 for the last usable bits.
> 
> Then the carcass will be done and reclamation will be in full swing now -
> but
> the IPv4 coming in from reclamation will be somewhat less tasty -
> ex-spammers
> blocks, stinky old swampland that may or may not have been used.
> 
> Then reclamation will start petering off and the IPv4 bits coming in from
> it
> will be very nasty indeed - blocks with squatters in it that the obtainer
> of the block will have to actively evict, blocks where the original
> occupier
> is still fighting with ARIN over ownership.
> 
> Then they will get down to the nitty-gritty of trying to piece together
> minimal
> sized blocks to allocate from scattered /24's some of which are
> abandonded,
> some
> not - begging and pleading with owners to please move over to this other
> /24
> so
> we can use the one your on to aggregate together a larger block.
> 
> Somewhere along the way some kind of transfer market may spring up - short
> lived
> though it may be, with a few folks making a killing off selling blocks -
> but
> as
> time passes it will die down.
> 
> During this time the number of orgs wanting IPv4 will be decreasing as
> more
> and more of the requestors give up hope of getting usable IPv4 and more
> and
> more
> of them migrate to IPv6.
> 
> So, perhaps maybe fully 4 years after the last /8 is allocated to ARIN
> then
> the
> very last aggregated subnet of any size will be given out - reclamation
> will
> be
> exhausted, and pretty much nobody will have any hope left of getting IPv4
> allocations
> except from the transfer market.  That might mark the "official" end of
> ARIN-assigned
> "free" IPv4.
> 
> The transfer market will be peaking right around now - as prices get so
> rediculous
> that it becomes cost effective for even the most retrogade networks to go
> to
> IPv6.
> 
> Then a tipping point will be reached and over a few months the bottom will
> drop
> out of the transfer market and the market will crash, and we will see the
> commencement
> of an accellerated schedule of more and more networks dropping IPv4.
> 
> A few years after that then reports will begin to show up of routing
> unreliability
> of the IPv4 Internet in certain spots on the Internet.
> 
> By 4 years after the "official end" of ARIN-assigned IPv4, we will start
> to
> see
> websites set up with countdown clocks predicting the very last day that
> IPv4
> traffic
> will exist on the Internet.
> 
> Then, sometime in 2020, some politician will send an e-mail titled
> "Goodbye"
> at a
> ribbon-cutting ceremony that will mark the last time that a real IPv4
> packet
> will
> be sent over the public Internet from a public client to a public server.
> 
> Around 2025, Cisco will make proficiency in IPv4 an optional part of it's
> assesment test.
> 
> Around 2030, Juniper and Cisco will release firmware that won't have IPv4
> support in
> the base load.
> 
> Does seem like a realistic end-game?
> 
> Ted
> 
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