Re: [address-policy-wg] 2007-08 Review Period extended until 9 July 2008 (Enabling Methods for Reallocation of IPv4 Resources)

[Tom Vest tvest@localhost]

On Jun 13, 2008, at 2:32 PM, David Conrad wrote:

> Tom,
>
> On Jun 13, 2008, at 9:29 AM, Tom Vest wrote:
> > It sounds like you're leaning toward favoring systems for  
> > recognizing inter-party transfers that are "nice" (i.e., that  
> > conform to whatever policies the community is willing to abide)  
> > because you predict that the community is unwilling to abide  
> > policies that that some members don't like -- specifically the ones  
> > that forbid inter-party transfers...
> More or less.
Okay, that's clear enough. But it makes me even more curious about  
your assumptions about what will follow.
> I'm interested in recognizing that:
>
> a) there are folks who will continue to need IPv4 addresses for the  
> foreseeable future
> b) there are folks who will have more IPv4 addresses than they need
> c) as opposed to communist nation-states, the mechanisms the RIRs  
> have to enforce the shared dictum "to each according to need" are  
> extremely limited and absolutely rely on "the consent of the  
> governed", many (if not most) of which are commercial organizations  
> generally intent on continuing to grow their businesses.
> Because I do not believe the RIRs have repealed the Law of Supply  
> and Demand, (a) and (b) will result in a market.  Because of (c),  
> the RIRs can either choose to encourage alternative registries (and  
> making themselves irrelevant) by not recognizing the transfers that  
> occur in that market or they can choose to perform the function of  
> registering address assignments made between consenting parties and  
> thereby maintaining some ability to affect address reassignment  
> policy.
> My impression is that most (rational) folks agree with (a) and (b).   
> I gather (c) is where there is disagreement and I'm trying to  
> understand why.  Hence my question to Jay.
I guess I share that level of rationality, at least, and I don't know  
of anyone who has illusions about the power of RIRs to enforce  
anything. Perhaps Jay is like me, trying to highlight some possible  
consequences that the "governed" might wish to consider before  
consenting to go down this particular one-way street.
> > ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf-online-proceedings/95apr/area.and.wg.reports/ops/cidrd/cidrd.rekhter.slides.ps
> > Was Yakov always wrong? Has something changed to make him less  
> > wrong today?
> Yakov was attempting to demonstrate that "address ownership" is  
> detrimental to scaling the Internet if you assume routing technology  
> does not change.  It was an argument for PA address space and  
> against PI.  This remains true, but as evidenced by the  
> proliferation of PI policies and assignments, is largely ignored  
> today. It is also largely irrelevant to this discussion since I (at  
> least) am not making the assumption that service providers will be  
> excluded from the market (indeed, I suspect they're going to be the  
> most desperate to obtain address space since enterprises can and do  
> sit happily behind a NAT box numbered with PA space).
I totally agree with you on this last point, which is why I assume  
that new entrants will immediately be priced out of the market. That  
in itself will probably be sufficient to bring the self-governance  
experiment to an end. But even if I'm too pessimistic on this point,  
the act of monetizing IPv4 -- and making it very very valuable, but  
only so long as most "real Internet resources" (users, content, etc.)  
are only reachable by traversing some IPv4 bottleneck(s) somewhere --  
is going to incentivize those who inherit such choke points to  
maintain them, and thus the value of their IPv4 assets, for as close  
to forever as possible.
It's probably safe to say that one of the minimum requirements for  
describing a sector as "open" or "competitive" is that new entrants do  
not have to pay competing incumbent for the privilege of entering, at  
any price that the incumbent might wish to set. Those who have  
accepted that a RIR-as-cartel lawsuit risk precludes other  
alternatives may wish to consider how to mitigate other kinds of  
antitrust-related legal risks as well.
TV