[address-policy-wg] 2007-08 New Draft Document Published (Enabling Methods for Reallocation of IPv4 Resources)

> Could we see a public statement from ETNO or the majority of 
> its members that should an IPv4 address market emerge after 
> RIR exhaustion, that all ETNO members will abstain from 
> engaging in IP address trading?

I don't know why you are asking me that question. I have no
formal involvement with ETNO. All I do is read ETNO documents,
occasionally post messages about the content of their documents
on RIR lists and try to encourage more ETNO members to join 
in the RIR dialog.

As you well know, ETNO members tend to be larger companies, and
therefore they have complex, and slow internal processes. I'm not
sure that it would be possible to get a company to make the sort
of committment that you are asking for. On the other hand, the same
complexity and slowness would make it rather difficult for one of
those companies to actually sell an IP address block. Anyone who
looks at this aspect of the issue will see that huge amounts of
the IPv4 address space are tied up in this way and are very unlikely
to ever be transferred to another company if it appears that IP
addresses have some monetary value. As long as it is a technical
issue, it is possible to hand back unused addresses as we recently
did with a piece of the 14/8 block.

--Michael Dillon

P.S. My employer happens to be a member of ETNO but all that means
is that I sometimes have an opportunity to comment on ETNO documents
before they are published. Other people in the company handle the 
ETNO relationship which is mostly not about IP addresses at all.

My postings to this list are based on my many years of experience
in the ISP industry since starting a regional ISP back in 1994.