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

[Owen DeLong]

On May 19, 2011, at 2:27 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:

> On 5/19/2011 2:21 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> 
>> The number of buyers with need will
>> exceed the available address space.
> 
> 1) You can't prove that, and,

I can, actually. The available IPv4 space that could end up on a transfer market is bounded
by those addresses not currently in use. As such, the rather limited supply is well known.

The pool of buyers is known to be monotonically increasing and ARIN's average issuance
of ~190,000 IPv4 /24s each year by ARIN would indicate an annual market demand for 25%
of the maximum possible pool from which to develop such a market (roughly 12 /8s)

Therefore, even if we assume that all possible addresses will come on the market with
your policy, the supply will be gone in 4 years or less. Any churn beyond that would leave
a need-gap behind unless it is the result of successful abandonment of IPv4. At the point
where organizations can begin successful abandonment of IPv4 altogether, the market
will invariably collapse anyway.

> 2) Even if that's true, adding buyers without need will increase demand and thus increase revenue for the sellers
> 

You say that as if it is a good thing. In fact, that is the very crux of the problem with this policy. It will
drive up the price of addresses for no purpose of benefit to the community.

Owen