[arin-ppml] quantitative study of IPv4 address market

[Joe Maimon]

Owen DeLong wrote:
>
> On Sep 3, 2012, at 08:24 , Joe Maimon <jmaimon at chl.com 
> <mailto:jmaimon at chl.com>> wrote:
>
>>
>> Owen DeLong wrote:
>>> On Sep 1, 2012, at 20:44 , Joe Maimon <jmaimon at chl.com 
>>> <mailto:jmaimon at chl.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Owen DeLong wrote:
>>>>> The goal of ARIN address policy is to place addresses in service 
>>>>> where they are needed so long as that is possible.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is the overarching goal of both the allocation policy _AND_ 
>>>>> the transfer policy.
>>
>> The allocation policy is relevant only so long as ARIN has an 
>> allocation pool. Which I want to see last as long as possible, since 
>> it is certain not to last long enough.
>
> This is where we utterly and completely disagree. Making the free pool 
> last artificially longer by disadvantaging legitimate uses of the 
> address space today is not a win and is contrary to ARIN's mission 
> statement, IMHO.'
Legitimate uses and justified need are equivalent statements that 
describe demand the community can support with supply, which is affected 
by scarcity, and that has always been the case. As such, the ARIN free 
pool is still wholly available to legitimate uses of resources, just 
like always.

The bar has changed, just like it has in the past.

>
>
> I appreciate the benefits of the transfer market but also recognize 
> its limitations and disadvantages. Inflicting those limitations and 
> disadvantages on some class of users earlier in order to delay it for 
> other classes of users is not good policy and as it does not meet the 
> required fairness test.

Yes it is and yes it does. Or do you think the transaction we have seen 
should have been done from the free pool? And if not, does that mean 
that the transfer policy should be the focus of your ire, instead of the 
free pool?
>
>>
>> Apparently to the extent measurable by the ARIN allocation fall-off 
>> not made up for in transfer market.
>>
>
> More than likely this is a temporary rather than permanent phenomenon. 
> Most likely many organizations are postponing additional requests due 
> to the increased difficulty of obtaining those addresses which will 
> eventually lead to a greater crush of supply at a later date.

If it is still occurring, it would be a year long temporary phenomenon.

Postponing requests due to increased difficulty results in negative 
benefit and is irrational behavior, unless you mean increasing 
efficiencies to compensate for the additional difficulties, in which 
case, I say again.

Working as designed.

>
>
> Does it? I don't know how much supply remains at achievable prices and 
> I'm not sure what you are looking at that tells you it is vast or that 
> more than $15 per address is necessarily an achievable price point.

If you assume that even half of the un-routed space is available for the 
market, or that half the legacy is available, or that a third of the 
broadband consumer addresses are re-usable or available for the market, 
you begin to doubt very much that the address market has any short-term 
hard limits.

We do not know how much inefficiency is available to be wrung out, but I 
have no reason to believe it be anything less than 25%.

Under a reduced by scarcity and market pressures utilization rate, that 
can last years.

>
> No, my expectation is that eventually, IPv6 must replace IPv4 as the 
> lingua franca of the global internet because there is currently no 
> other available solution which will allow the internet to continue to 
> grow and provide the same vital functions that it provides today. My 
> hope is that we will do that sooner rather than later because it will 
> be much less traumatic, much less disruptive, and much less expensive.

We are so far beyond that point that it is salt in the wound to hope for it.
>
>> Do you have reason to be hopeful or is that simply what you have 
>> banked on and wish to happen?
>
> Yes, I have many reasons to be hopeful...
> 1.IPv6 adoption is growing
> 2.Growth in IPv6 adoption is accelerating
Project from this growth, rate when the demand for IPv4 addresses will 
die off. Put a number on it. Then let us agree to try to conserve the 
ARIN free pool to last that long.
> 3.No matter what you do to try and work around it, IPv4 cannot scale 
> to support the internet much beyond its
> current size. Efforts to do otherwise have been degrading the 
> capabilities of the internet for more than a
> decade now
Nobody has been switching to IPv6 because of this, so what makes you 
think they will soon?
> and all evidence is that this will continue to get worse and not 
> better going forward. Many
> indications are that it will get rapidly and substantially worse.

This is your best case scenario? That IPv4 will become so untenable that 
it will force IPv6 adoption?

Unfortunately for this scenario, there is still no surety that there 
will exist a first mover advantage, even then.
> 4.There is strong evidence to suggest that IPv4 is unsustainable and 
> that any of a variety of run-out related
> factors and activities will eventually make IPv4 utterly unusable.
>
Eventually the sun will burn out and Earth will be utterly 
uninhabitable. I suspect sometime before that, we will have migrated 
completely off of IPv4.

But I dont know when that will be. Neither do you. And as such, we must 
not treat IPv4 as disposable.
>
>
> It equates to all of the RIRs being out at similar times. This is 
> actually advantageous as it is less likely to push for asymmetrical 
> deployments of IPv4 continuation technologies creating a more drawn 
> out transition process with greater pain and dysfunction.
Horse trade? You support APNIC/RIPE style last /8 conservation policies 
and I will support 12 month free pool allocation.
>
>
> I would call that the ultra-cynical view and also one which ignores 
> the following realities:
>
> 1.Most growth in the ARIN region is in the mobile market.
Which is the most CGN targetable market. The cynical view is that the 
growth serves as a sanctioned form of stockpiling.

> 2.VZW and T-Mobile have put huge effort and investment in moving their 
> mobile
> solutions towards IPv6.
> 3.Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T have all put significant investment in 
> making IPv6
> available to their broadband subscriber base and are continuing to 
> expand that
> offering to more of their subscribers.
> 4.Many other broadband providers are engaged in similar efforts.
Do you think the ARIN free pool continuing to be available to their 
competitors may  have something to do with it?

And they can safely plod the course. It will still give them years of 
advantage. From availability, to supported, to desired, to consumed. 
Quite a distance.

> 5.The majority of large legacy holders are not ISPs.
> 6.The majority of ISPs that are large legacy holders hold more 
> non-legacy space than
> legacy space at this point.
> 7.Nobody who has looked at the technology seriously wants to run a 
> large-scale
> CGN deployment in a country subject to CALEA or CALEA-like legislation.
> 8.Nobody who has looked at the technology seriously from an operations 
> perspective
> wants to maintain a CGN deployment at any scale.
>

You are correct. From an ops viewpoint, it sucks. Does it matter? Who 
calls the strategic shots? Ops?

>> We will not be better off. There is no way to predict how long IPv4 
>> will remain relevant and/or necessary.
>
> We will be better off in that we will not extend the duration of IPv4 
> relevance to cause greater pain and
> disruption.

IPv4 relevance is not decreased by the exhaustion of RIR free pool. RIR 
relevance is.
>
>>> Extending the duration of the ARIN free pool by creating an early 
>>> artificial shortage through policy
>> Extending the availability of the ARIN free pool by reducing its burn 
>> rate is the only sane approach.
>>
>
> Extending the availability of the ARIN free pool is impossible.
It is happening right now. So it is possible.

> What you are talking about is extending
> the duration of the ARIN free pool by reducing its availability and 
> making it asymmetrically and unfairly
> unavailable to various classes of users to the benefit of a class of 
> users you happen to advocate.
Lets not discuss fair. Because then we have to talk about things like 
who has the addresses and who does not. And who pays more and who pays 
less. And on whom the burden of obtaining these addresses is greater. 
And on whom is policy more burdensome. And who tends to find working 
with ARIN to be more difficult, frustrating and mystifying. And whom 
reaped the benefits of rir history that relative to now is increasingly 
more relaxed and informal.

Instead, lets discuss legitimate use. Justified utilization. Documented 
need. All things which ARIN, both operationally and as a matter of 
policy has gradually and ever increasingly been raising the bar on. For 
years. They certainly believe that they are applying policy soundly and 
fairly.

The result is that ARIN still has a free pool to discuss.
>
> As a community member, I can somewhat sympathize with your view even 
> though I find it misguided.

Likewise,  I can sympathize with your desire to decrease IPv4 relevancy. 
However, I find your attempts to do so misguided and coy.
>
> While the above thoughts are my own personal opinion and do not 
> represent an official statement of
> the AC (or even agree with the official opinion of the AC), my 
> personal thoughts on this matter are
> partially shaped by my obligation as an AC member to insist that 
> policy be fair, technically sound,
> and useful to the community.
>
> Owen
>
The AC has no business having an official opinion in this matter (and 
quite a few others) but that does not seem to stop them, so I would not 
worry about that if I were you.

Joe