[address-policy-wg] Re: [arin-ppml] Offer to buy IP address block (was Spectrum and IP address reservations)

On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 11:35:50PM +0100, michael.dillon at bt.com wrote:
> > > Someone recently offered an American ISP 6 figures for a /20 block 
> > > that was acquired as part of a corporate acquisition.
> > > The ISP declined the offer and returned the block to ARIN.
> > >
> > > This could mean that the value of a /20 on the open market 
> > is 100,000 
> > > USD. Since a /20 has 16 /24 equivalents in it, that would place the 
> > > value of a /24 at 6250 USD.
> > 
> > http://xkcd.com/605/
> 
> Not terribly relevant to IPv4 addresses.

hugely relevant, as the extrapolation above is based on way, way, way too few
datapoints/samples.

> So there you have two actual price offers showing a substantial
> range of values. Someone with actual economical statistics experience
> may be able to suggest a likely distribution of prices over this
> price range and come up with a more likely value of ARIN's annual
> ISP allocations.

the first example was a price offered by a company that obviously had way too
much surplus cash around, and apparently didn't qualify for their own block.

the second example (spammers looking to rent a block) is a bit of a stretch
as well.

-- 
Jim Mercer        jim at reptiles.org        +971 55 410-5633
"I'm Prime Minister of Canada, I live here and I'm going to take a leak."
   - Lester Pearson in 1967, during a meeting between himself and
    President Lyndon Johnson, whose Secret Service detail had taken over
    Pearson's cottage retreat.  At one point, a Johnson guard asked
    Pearson, "Who are you and where are you going?"