[arin-ppml] IPv4 Transfer Policy Change to Keep Whois Accurate

[Owen DeLong]

On May 12, 2011, at 4:15 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:

> 
> On May 12, 2011, at 3:19 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
> 
>>> 
>> 
>> Forcing customer to use NAT is not within the scope of ARIN policy and I do not consider the failure or refusal to do so to be a manipulation of need.
>> NAT is a degraded subset of internet access services.
> 
> My point is that someone with lots of addresses that they *could* free up can still claim they need more fairly easily.
> 

Your definition of "could" and mine are different.

>> 
>> There are many providers of much smaller size that are equally expert at dealing with ARIN justified need. I do not believe your argument
>> hold water.
> 
> They don't have enough money to play as the price approaches infinity, however.
> 

Which is why I think it is important to preserve needs justification. I believe that preserving needs
justification will both reduce the speed at which pricing approaches infinity and increase availability
to a wider variety of providers.

>> As I said, I think with needs-basis, the value of N tends to be larger than it will be without N.
> 
> And I think you're wrong on that point.
> 

Then we can agree to disagree. I have at least provided reasons for my assertion based in both
historical fact and observable behavior on the internet and in other markets.

>> 
>>> 
>>> One could argue, for instance, that *with* a needs basis Comcast might end up holding nearly all the space... but without a needs basis it might be an investment banking firm instead, who'd then lease the space out to move providers than just Comcast.
>>> 
>> 
>> I think you have a number of assertions there which are not at all proven:
>> 
>> 	1.	I think it is unlikely $CABLECO could demonstrate 12 month need for all the
>> 		addresses on their first go. Other providers and end-users, will therefore be
>> 		likely able to obtain some fraction of the address space.
> 
> Maybe. But a very small number of players with lots of money and needs justification will be able to dominate the buy side trivially. And very small amounts of gaming turn a /14 of need into a /13 or /12, whereas the same amount applied to a tiny request for a /24 isn't so interesting.
> 

I believe that the initial market will actually be much larger than a few /12s (probably 2-5 /8
equivalents). As such, I believe that for at least the first round of buying, a relatively large
number of providers will have purchasing opportunities if we preserve needs-basis.
OTOH, if we abandon stewardship as proposed, then, yes, one or more large well
funded providers will likely dominate the market early and permanently to the complete
exclusion of all others.

> 
>> 
>> 	2.	I have no reason to believe that $CABLECO would not be ahead of the
>> 		investment banking firm in line for the addresses as I suspect $CABLECO
>> 		generally pays more attention to the goings on at ARIN than does
>> 		$INVESTMENT_BANK.
> 
> One would assume that some of the folks here who have an interest in making money by speculating on IPv4 space are planning on having a source of cash with which to do that.
> 

Perhaps. Perhaps not. As I stated, this is at best a relatively unfounded assertion.
Even if your later statement holds true, that does not necessarily connect them to
$INVESTMENT_BANK.

>> 
>> 	3.	There is nothing to prove that $INVESTMENT_BANK would not prefer to
>> 		lease all the addresses to $CABLECO vs. dealing with multiple tenants.
>> 		In fact, there are many things to suggest that such a model would be
>> 		highly preferable as it would maintain roughly the same revenue while
>> 		simultaneously reducing costs which generally is viewed favorably
>> 		by most of the investment bankers I know.
> 
> Unknown, but possible. In fact, $CABLECO might be able to afford an exclusive deal. But then this is NO DIFFERENT than $CABLECO going and getting that much space itself.. so who cares? In either case your doomsday scenario of a few big providers holding most of the space happens, and needs justification did nothing to prevent it.
> 

I disagree. See point 1 above... again.

Owen