Scarcity in IPv4 Addresses:
Transfer Markets
Dr. Milton Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information
Studies, USA
XS4ALL Professor, Delft University of Technology,
Netherlands
Running out
Hain (2005), Huston (2007) studies
IANA unallocated address number pool
consists of 39 unallocated blocks
Enough to last 3 years, more or less
IPv6 migration uncertain:
Might go fast, might take decades, might
never happen
We will probably be running dual stacks
for a long time
The old IPv4 address regime
RIRs conservation policies presume the existence of
an unallocated free pool
You get addresses by justifying your need for them
using engineering studies
You are supposed to return addresses that you don’t
need (this rarely happens)
You can’t sell or transfer addresses (except when you
game the system to do it anyway)
About half of the IPv4 address space is held by
“legacy” holders
Some legacy allocations are unused or hijacked
With IPv4 scarcity,
everything has to change
It’s about reclaiming unused blocks, not giving
out blocks from a free pool
It’s about transfers, not initial allocations
It’s about maintaining complete and accurate
records, which function as titles
It’s about avoiding gray markets
It’s about controlling unwanted forms of
hoarding and speculation
It’s about facilitating transfers while avoiding
de-aggregation
Address transfer proposals
Asia-Pacific region (APNIC): prop-050-v002:
IPv4 address transfers (Huston)
European region: RIPE 2007-08, Enabling
Methods for Reallocation of IPv4 Resources.
(Titley and van Mook)
North America region (ARIN): Policy Proposal
2008-2 IPv4 Transfer Policy Proposal
Issues in transfer proposals
Trigger date
Geographic restrictions
Role of “needs assessment”
Speculation controls
Fees
Route aggregation
Myths and FUD about transfers
It will slow down IPv6 migration
If migration is inevitable, transfer markets can only
prolong it, not prevent it.
If IPv6 is not inevitable, then attempts to force
people to migrate by preventing more efficient use
of remaining IPv4 addresses could backfire badly.
Hurts developing countries
Falsely assumes scarcity doesn’t exist
A brick wall hurts developing countries more
More Myths…
Favors incumbents
Opposite of the truth
Unfair windfall to legacy holders
So what, if it gets the resources back into
public use?
No other feasible reclamation method exists
Conclusion
Major change taking place in RIRs
Address management in 2008 similar to
DNS in 1998
You can get the complete paper here:
http://internetgovernance.org/publications.html