[arin-ppml] Draft Policy 2009-1: Transfer Policy - Revised andforwarded to the Board

[Eliot Lear]

Michael,

The case you describe below will be true in when the addresses are 
allocated within the enterprise, and when the price is low.  When the 
addresses are unallocated and the price is high, the business case is 
that there is money that could be used to invest in core business rather 
than sit in what I presume would be classed a perishable commodity 
(under the assumption that IPv6 would happen).

In the case where the addresses are allocated and the price is high, if 
you are considering moving to IPv6 and you have such a perishable 
commodity, if it's a choice of which quarter to make the move, having it 
be cash neutral or better would be preferred, and so price will have an 
impact there as well.  Bill, Tom, and I described this case as some of 
the potential positives of a transfer market.

Eliot

On 5/8/09 9:47 PM, michael.dillon at bt.com wrote:
>>   If companies hear that they can
>> get money for giving up space, many (but not all) of them are
>> going to do an inventory and find out what they have but
>> don't actually need so that they can cash in.
>>      
> Sorry, but the business world does not work like that. In
> order to do any recovery work, you have to make a business
> case which involves balancing the costs of the work, versus
> the returns from selling the IP addresses and also factor in
> the risk that the price will be rather lower than expected,
> plus the risks related to potential disruption caused by the
> cleanup.
>    


> Earlier you described seeing many cases of sloppiness and
> your motive is to provide an incentive to clean up. But did't
> you notice that this kind of sloppiness is accepted within
> the businesses that you looked at? They've looked at the
> full spectrum of activity that they could do, and decided
> that some things, although ugly, just don't cause negative
> impacts to customers, so it is better to leave well enough
> alone.
>
> This isn't going to change unless it really starts to hit
> the bottom line, and that will happen when IANA runs
> out of IPv4 addresses and companies have to face up to
> the fact that they are unlikely to ever get more addresses
> from ARIN, or if they do get more, it will be less than
> they need. At that point, something which could cause a
> simple T1 install to fail becomes a big risk to the bottom
> line because the customer ordering that T1 has a hundred
> or two other circuits, plus colo, plus other value-add
> services, and the company risks losing all of it for the
> want of an address.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail>
>
> That is what will motivate businesses, not a few paltry
> thousands of dollars gained by selling IP address blocks.
>
> --Michael Dillon
>
> P.S. I don't doubt that a few businesses will spend some big
> cash to buy up addresses and avert catastrophe, but they will
> pay big bucks because the supply will be extremely limited.
> That will be the end of the IP address market as people realise
> that it is not stable, can't be relied on, and that there may
> not really be enough available addresses anywhere in the world.
> IPv6 will be like an oasis in the desert. End of story.
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