[arin-ppml] Some data relating to IPv4 address exhaustion (or not)

[Eliot Lear]

Bill,

Here is my real question: if demand for new address allocations is weak 
post-runout (meaning greater than 100% allocated when the cost is 0), 
what happens when the cost is > 0 in such an environment?  At what point 
do we hit a knee of some form?

Regards,

Eliot

On 5/6/09 7:15 PM, William Lehr wrote:
> That is a reasonable hypothesis, but I would not be surprised if there 
> were no correlation at all because of the complex dynamics associated 
> with address usage.
>
> Basically, IP addresses are a small share of costs to run a network 
> and even smaller share of corporate IT budgets so should not be 
> closely correlated with it. Yes, there is presumably rough correlation 
> between number of employees, corporate capital expenditures, and other 
> such indicators associated with overall economy, but I would expect 
> that to be very noisy. Issues like architecture reconfiguration could 
> increase or decrease need for addresses and so direction of impact of 
> business cycles on IP address demand would be ambiguous.
>
> On other hand, since addresses are allocated in one-way process (from 
> unallocated pool to demanders) and new allocations justified by need 
> to meet expanded user-base, there is implicit linkage between business 
> cycles and demand, and that seems likely to make it a leading 
> indicator. But in some sense an artificial indicator that is partially 
> due to current allocation mechanism rather than real "demand." (That 
> is, does address utilitization correlate with demand? My earlier 
> discussion focused more on address utilization.)
>
> Interesting academic questions, but I am surprised it makes much of a 
> difference in policy debate. Exhaustion is still pre-ordained 
> conclusion, right? Do a few months one way or other make a big 
> difference?
>
> Marshall Eubanks wrote:
>>
>> On May 6, 2009, at 8:04 AM, Eliot Lear wrote:
>>
>>> Ted,
>>>
>>> Here are some interesting data points for this group to consider.
>>> According to the U.N., world economic growth dropped from 3.5-4% in
>>> 2003-2007 to 2.5% in 2008, and the prediction is for around 1% 
>>> growth in
>>> 2009.  At the same time, Geoff Huston's numbers have been shifting to
>>> the right.  In the case of IANA the number has shifted out 6 months 
>>> in 6
>>> months.  We have not seen quite the same shift for RIR numbers,
>>> however.  Is world economic growth a controlling variable in the
>>> equation of IP address consumption, or merely a coincidence, and how 
>>> can
>>> we tell?
>>>
>>
>> I would expect the RIR allocation requests to be a lagging indicator 
>> of the economic situation, and
>> that address usage would be simultaneous with or even a leading 
>> indicator of the economy.
>>
>> Regards
>> Marshall
>>
>>> Eliot
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>>
>> Regards
>> Marshall Eubanks
>> CEO / AmericaFree.TV
>>
>>
>