[arin-ppml] IPv4 Depletion as an ARIN policy concern

[William Herrin]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 10:54 AM, Lee Howard <spiffnolee at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Rhetorical question: is it presently possible to get "good" IPv6
>> transit for the same standard of "good" as is available for IPv4
>> transit? The answer, of course, is no.
>
> Sounds like there may be some dollars to be waived under the noses
> of some transit providers.  "Give me production-grade IPv6 transit
> or my IPv6 bits go elsewhere."

Lee,

I assure you it only sounds that way. The investment is a cumulative
effect measured not just in terms of my transit connection but
simultaneously in terms of yous and the transit for every other
individual who would use IPv6 to talk to me. I could wave Bill Gates'
fortune at the transit providers and it would still be years before
the IPv4 and IPv6 DFZs' standard of quality reached parity.


> Maybe in six months,
> conditions will have changed enough for you not to worry.

Not possible. Not even in 3 years. Best example of a systemic
technology being deployed first-class from day one is the 1.6 gallon
flush. That was only possible because the predecessor technology was
literally outlawed. Maybe in 6 years but can't really start the
countdown clock for IPv6 success until the insanity of trying to treat
it as a first class protocol up front is dealt with.


> Question born of ignorance:
> can you track unique web views if thousands of users are behind a
> single IPv4 address?  It might not be an issue for your servers, but
> many websites use that as their primary metric for selling ads, don't
> they?

Depends on your methodology. comScore, for example, offers prizes to
induce folks to sit on a panel, by which they mean install software on
their PCs that reports their web use and answer surveys about their
interests and demographics. Scale those results versus a carefully
randomized control group and you get a statistically valid idea what's
going on.

You also have to understand that the metrics folks aren't interested
in use by machine so much as use by *person*. Users have demographics
and areas of interest. Machines are mostly just machines. NAT or no
NAT, tell me how you separate Mom, Dad and Child on the family PC
evaluating only the packets.

At the point when I left comScore no IPv6 measurement was being done.
I got the impression that had I stayed it might have been humored as
"Bill's pet project."

Targeted advertising is a whole other ballgame than site metrics and
demographics. I don't have a lot of experience there but AFAIK it's
mostly based on cookies rather than source address.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004