[arin-ppml] Fairness of banning IPv4 allocations to somecategoryof organization

[Chris Engel]

It seems to me that a truism of human nature in that, the more critical a resource truly is... the harder people will work to obtain it AND the harder humans have to work for a resource the more willing they are to attempt to find some alternative to it.

I bring this up in the context of the current discussion because of the relevance it has to the growing scarcity of IPv4 addresses and the speed at which IPv6 (or other alternatives to the use of IPv4 addresses). While I am a fan of "needs based" allocation, there is a simple and basic problem with it....not only is it very tricky to define exactly what constitutes "need"... even once you have those definitions.... it is very simple for an applicant to simply "cheat" to qualify for them. That is another unfortunate truism of human nature, many people are willing to be dishonest to obtain what they desire...and large organizations/corporations are no less susceptible to such temptations than individuals.

What an organization may claim as a "need" for IPv4 addresses may in reality translate to nothing more then "it will cost us 3 cents more per unit to use IPv4 then IPv6". However, an organization will most certainly not present it that way in their application. They will probably invent a very convincing rationalization why they absolutely and positively cannot implement a solution without IPv4 addresses. I'm hardly the most creative person and I can think of many different ways to "spin" such presentations. Rest assured that organizations with large budgets on the line will find very creative ways to justify their need. Getting to the actual truth of such justifications would be very difficult and expensive and probably impossible without some sort of subpoena power.

Perhaps the better route, rather then a need based system,  WOULD be to place some sort of cost on obtaining IPv4 addresses reflective of the actual scarcity of them. I think such a concept does have merit. You could also put some sort of weighting system in place that the more IPv4 addresses you own, the more it costs to obtain each additional one. This could help dampen "run on the bank" type effects when instituting such a system.... as it would make it financially unattractive to obtain more then you needed...as some sort of guard against future scarcity or to purchase large numbers simply to speculate with them.

The whole idea behind such a scheme, of course, is to create a "soft crash" rather then a "hard crash" of address space which would be far more disruptive. Ultimately IPv4 space WILL run out, as we all know. However, if it becomes less cost effective to use large quantities of IPv4 space people will find alternatives (including IPv6)... and for those that truly face huge hurdles the ability to obtain them still exists...just at a premium.

In many ways, this situation is a prime example of "the tragedy of the commons".






Christopher Engel