Re: IPv4 address exchange

[David Conrad <drc () virtualized org>]

On Apr 18, 2011, at 3:57 PM, Scott Weeks wrote:
> Has this been discussed here?  

Not yet for this particular instance.

> I did a quickie search and saw nothing.  Other than spam to a technical mailing list, do you guys care, or is it a 
> non-issue? 

Unfortunately, it's an issue. It's a painfully obvious outcome of the laws of supply and demand and the inability of 
the RIRs to effectively evolve to meet the changing environment. As with any disruptive event (which the exhaustion of 
the IPv4 free pool clearly is), there will be a bit of chaos as things settle down into new patterns. 

On the positive side, I figure it means it will be more likely that allocated-but-unused IPv4 address space will be put 
back into play (since there is now a financial incentive to do so). An explicit cost for obtaining IPv4 should also 
help justify IPv6 deployment (since the (fixed) cost of IPv6 deployment will be able to be compared against the 
unpredictable but likely increasing cost of obtaining IPv4 addresses).  Operationally, there are concerns, specifically 
how ISPs determine whether the addresses presented to them are owned by the presenter (if they care), but I understand 
that's already a problem (as demonstrated by Ron's postings).

Interesting times.

Regards,
-drc