[address-policy-wg] 2007-08 New Policy Proposal (Enabling Methods for Reallocation of IPv4 Resources)

On 29 okt 2007, at 16:19, David Conrad wrote:

>> About half the ~ 40 legacy /8 assignments don't show up in the  
>> routing
>> table.

> Which, of course, means precisely nothing.

The value of an IP address is the ability to receive packets from  
elsewhere addressed to it. Without a presence in a routing table  
someplace, that doesn't happen so the IP address is of no value.  
Better give it back so someone else who can instill it with exactly  
that value in that case...

>>>> How much do you think a reclaim programme would cost to run?

>> Don't know; don't care too much. Let the people who want the  
>> addresses
>> pay for it.

> I thought you didn't want a market?

There is no market in passports. Doesn't mean you get it for free.

>> Trading something that's in demand but has no supply
>> will lead to hoarding, reducing availability or at the very least
>> making it unpredictable.

> The address space in question is already allocated, hence  
> unavailable.  The
> question is how to incent folks to put their "allocated but unused"  
> address
> space back into play.

Your assumption is that the value of having more addresses  
automatically outweighs any negative consequences from having a  
market. It requires herculian effort to keep the up-and-coming  
economies happy with the way the internet is currently "run" (if there  
is such a thing). What is the developing world going to say when they  
have to pay rich American companies for address space--address space  
that those companies got for free?

What if a slow trickle of expensive IPv4 addresses is just enough to  
keep people from moving to IPv6, but at the same time stiffling the  
industry both technically by deeper and deeper layers of NAT and  
economically because it takes longer and longer and costs more and  
more to get new IP addresses for new businesses?

There are STILL people that refuse to bother implementing IPv6 in  
their products, making it that much harder for their customers to  
adopt IPv6 in the next three years that we can reasonably sure about  
having current levels of IPv4 availability. Anything that these people  
can use as an excuse to wait even longer is extremely harmful.