[address-policy-wg] 2007-8 discussions

Some random reactions to the puzzling statements from transfer opponents

> -----Original Message-----
Responses Gert Doering: 
> (If, OTOH, you're right and everbody will go to IPv6 right away, then
> I don't see why 2007-08 would do *harm*)

Precisely right. If the v6 option is viable and better, then people will
use it. V4 transfers are an insurance policy to get us through the
transition period, which could be 5 years or 50 years. 

Responses to Michael Dillon:
> Publicly traded companies do not have the luxury of sitting
> on their hands and waiting until the IPv4 address crisis hits.
> They have to be prepared, and as a result, there will be very
> few buyers in a future IPv4 address market. 

There are two related predictions here. One is that the v6 migration
will go smoothly. The other is that there will be no market for v4. Both
are empirical predictions, about which you may be right or wrong.
Suppose you are right. If so, the availability of IPv4 transfer markets
does no harm because no one uses them or needs them. Suppose you are
wrong. Then, the need for IPv4 is heightened and prolonged, and we will
be very sorry we didn't create a smooth and above-board mechanism for
transfers. 

> Statistically speaking
> there will likely be a few companies who did not plan adequately
> and who run out in desperation to buy IPv4 addresses. But we
> should not be making policies to cater to these few companies.

Umm, why not? And how do you _know_ that it is a "few"? 

> 2007-08 is the first step to treating IP addresss as freehold
> assets which can be bought and sold. If RIPE changes the status
> of IPv4 addresses, then IPv6 addresses will also become assets
> which must be accounted for on the balance sheet. I think that
> a court would decide that 2007-08 and any future transfer policies
> override the statement on freehold status in the IPv6 policy.

I'm afraid this is a completely bogus prediction about the action of
courts, made by a non-lawyer, with no specification of which legal
system/courts he is talking about, nor the legal grounds upon which such
a decision would be based, or what kind of litigation would put the
issue into the courts to begin with.

I would not venture to make any predictions about courts, but as someone
with economics background I can say that the difference between
resources that are available at zero price or a flat
administrative/membership fee (e.g., v6 addresses) and those that are
priced in the market (e.g., v4 addresses in the future) is quite
fundamental and I don't see why the pricing of one would affect the
valuation of the other or how any court could fail to take that into
account. Recall also that this is contractual governance so if RIPE
contracts say that one type of address is transferable and another then
that's the way things are.

The auctioning of mobile spectrum in the U.S. has not forced
broadcasters, who got their spectrum for free, to account for their
spectrum holdings according to a projected market value. 

However (in line with the predictions of those who see gray/black
markets developing in v4 if no transfers are authorized) it is well
known for decades that the value of spectrum is captured when
broadcasters sell their station licenses to another company. Oddly,
station transmission facilities that cost tens of thousands of dollars,
when coupled with a license that costs a small regulatory fee, routinely
sell for hundreds of millions. 

> Internet sites from one of the larger ISPs. The price for IPv6 
> addresses is predictable (zero) and the price for the IPv6 service 
> will also be predictable since it is being sold in a competitive 
> market. It is highly likely that ISPs will offer IPv6 connectivity at 

This is just weird. If v4 addresses are sold in a competitive market,
you call them "unpredictable." But you call the price of v6 service
"predictable" because....it is sold in a competitive market.

> a lower price than IPv4 connnectivity because it reduces the pressure 
> on their legacy IPv4 infrastructure.

Sure, they'll sell access to 1/10th of the internet for less than the
price of 100% access. What you may not be taking into account is the
universal connectivity associated with v4.