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

[Chris Engel]

> 
> On May 19, 2011, at 4:59 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:
> 
> > On 5/19/2011 4:48 PM, Mike Burns wrote:
> >>
> >> And you believe this and still think there is a danger from speculators?
> When the market is at most 4 years in duration and then subject to collapse
> due to IPv6?
> >
> >
> > That's really the best question. Who are the speculators that we're worried
> about who have enough cash to actually affect the price of IP address space
> and availability *and* who are stupid enough to do that when they know a
> collapse is coming soon?
> >
> 
> Speculation for profit is not the only form of speculation I am concerned
> about, but, even that if you corner the market at T0 and sell it all off at T2
> with a 200% price increase is damaging.
> 
> The form that worries me the most, however, is if $MEGA_TELCO and
> $MEGA_CABLECO purchase all of the available addresses as they come on
> the market, leaving nothing for their smaller less capitalized competitors to
> use, they may be bale to forestall (and would now have a financial
> interest in doing so) their IPv6 deployments for enough years to seriously
> damage their competitors that had no non-IPv6 alternative.
> 
> I see no reason to produce policy that enables this behavior and many
> reasons not to.
> 
> > Also, if these speculators are really so bad, won't all the altruistic sellers
> (some of whom are represented in this discussion, no doubt) simply refuse
> to sell to them at *any* price, but have nice low prices for non-profits and
> other good causes that need space?
> >
> 
> I think this presumes a number of facts not in evidence, not the least of
> which is that one can readily determine that your purchaser is,
> in fact, such a speculator.
> 
> Owen

Owen,

Playing devil's advocate for a moment, If an organization were able to receive substantial capital from divesting itself of it's IPv4 address space, wouldn't that go a long way toward mitigating one of the significant impediments that organizations face in regards IPv6 adoption today.....namely that the cost for adoption does not justify the perceived benefits?

Christopher Engel
(representing only my own views)