[85492] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: IPv6 news
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard A Steenbergen)
Wed Oct 12 16:39:57 2005
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 16:38:53 -0400
From: Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net>
To: Daniel Golding <dgolding@burtongroup.com>
Cc: Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>,
"Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu>, nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <BF72DA3F.11D4B%dgolding@burtongroup.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On Wed, Oct 12, 2005 at 03:20:31PM -0400, Daniel Golding wrote:
>=20
> On 10/12/05 3:13 PM, "Randy Bush" <randy@psg.com> wrote:
>=20
> >=20
> > geoff's predictions for a very lively market in v4 space will
> > seriously come into play.
>=20
> Maybe its time to have a serious talk about IPv4 commodity trading scheme=
s.
> Anyone interested in this enough to have a BOF at ARIN/NANOG?
>=20
> This could extend the lifetime of the IPv4 space significantly by promoti=
ng
> efficient use through economic incentives, provide positive economic
> incentives to move to v6 when needed, and eliminate the grey market.
>=20
> Proper controls could be put into place to prevent de-aggregation through
> utilization of the RIRs as clearing houses.
First of all, I'm still waiting to be convinced that there is actually an=
=20
IP shortage at all. From the latest routing table analysis dump to nanog:
Percentage of available address space announced: 38.6
Percentage of allocated address space announced: 58.1
Percentage of available address space allocated: 66.4
=46rom where I sit, the perceived shortage is due to non-existant=20
reclamation of unused resources, and financial incentives to create an=20
artificial shortage. As much as I like to see capitalism solve problems, I=
=20
don't think that opening up a market in selling legacy allocations is=20
going to make things better.
It is one thing to have a legacy allocation sitting around "just incase",=
=20
when the only value is reduced annoyance if you ever need to get more IP=20
space in the future. It is another thing to have the allocation actually=20
be worth something monitarily, and potentially worth a big something if=20
you can manage to hold onto it until there is a REAL shortage (maybe even=
=20
one that a legacy allocation owner can help create if they have any policy=
=20
control, wink wink nudge nudge). Capitalism can only sort things out when=
=20
there is a truely open market, which I don't think describes this=20
situation at all.
All I see is that in 3-4 years we will actually have to engage our=20
collective brains again and start getting new IP allocations from a=20
different source. It's not an exhaustion of IPv4 at all, it is just a next=
=20
step in the evolution of the Internet. Call it recycling if you will.
Investing a little bit of time and effort into figuring out the=20
reclamation process now would save us a lot of grief a few years down the=
=20
road. Why don't we start by going after the low hanging fruit, and=20
pressure some non-corporate entities like the US government to return some=
=20
of its legacy unused /8 allocations. I'm certain that someone with some=20
historical BGP data could put together an analysis of who has not used=20
their IP allocations at ALL within the last few years, still more low=20
hanging fruit which we can take care of now. Of course, the last time I=20
mentioned an unused /8 which should have been returned years ago on this=20
list, the party in question started announcing it in BGP the next day.
--=20
Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)
