[arin-ppml] LAST CALL for Recommended Draft Policy ARIN-2015-3: Remove 30 day utilization requirement in end-user IPv4 policy

[Mueller, Milton L]

From: Owen DeLong [mailto:owen at delong.com]


Transfers are not rationed by price…

MM: False. This is like saying white is black. Transfers involve a payment by the receiving party. They are, therefore, rationed by price. Not much room for debate here. You’re just wrong.

Price does not ensure that the purchaser has actual need for the resources, it merely insures that they have monetary resources that they are willing to trade for number resources.

MM: It means that they value the resources and thus have some kind of need for them. There are 1,000 other things they could spend that money on but the buyer has determined that the value they will get out of the numbers is at least equal to the value of the money they spend.

You’ve presented no evidence whatsoever to support your conclusion that stringent needs assessment raises the price

In fact, in the RIPE region where there are virtually no needs-based controls, according to the brokers I have discussed things with, prices are rising more rapidly than in the ARIN region, which would in fact appear to suggest that our needs-assessment regime is, in fact, holding prices down.

MM: Facts? Citations to specific transactions? I am always open to evidence.

If we eliminate needs assessment, what mechanism assures that the transferee is actually a network operator? Further, how does it in any way assure that the transfer is from a place of less need to a place of greater need rather than a place of limited need to a place of greater monetary resources?

MM: This is not the place to rectify your general lack of familiarity with economics. But you seem to think that people with “greater monetary resources” simply throw them at anything that moves. In fact, in the real world, everyone tries to maximize the value they get from whatever resources they have. So if someone pays for addresses, it is a very reliable indicator that they need them for something. Most if not all of the organizations that can derive value from numbers are network operators.  The threat of massive speculation is a bogeyman you have invented – there is no evidence that it exists. The only “speculation and hoarding” that currently exists is the holding of number resources by current assignees who don’t need them. And stringent needs assessment freezes that problem into place. Sorry to say it, but you, Owen, are one of the greatest defenders of hoarding.

You start with an assumption that you are correct in your conjecture and then act as if it is everyone else’s duty to provide evidence that your speculation is not correct. The reality is that these are judgment calls based on limited experience and while we do know that needs assessment does, in fact, work to some extent, there is very limited experience without it. Unfortunately, once it is eliminated, it will be virtually impossible to put the genie back in the bottle, so people are understandably cautious about opening the bottle all at once.

Owen


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