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

[Tom Vest]

FYI, global demand for "initial allocations" a.k.a., new entrants in  
the routing services market -- those for whom neither RFC 1918 nor  
IPv6 (as of today) is even remotely substitutable for IPv4 -- stood at  
about avg. 2-3 successful seekers *per day* at the lowest moment in  
recorded history, c. late 2002, at the bottom of the post-telecom  
collapse slump. The Internet is twice as "big" as it was then, and a  
similar drop-off today from the long-term trend would probably yield  
an equivalent daily demand rate much greater than the old all-time low.

Any observed deviation from the long-term trend that is substantially  
larger or longer than the one in 2002 is going to have only two  
possible explanations: supply/pricing constraints (market power either  
way) and/or the non-observability of what is really going (i.e.,  
incremental failure of the registration system).

TV


On May 6, 2009, at 7:22 PM, Eliot Lear wrote:

> 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
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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