[At-Large] They're out of IPv4 Addresses!

Avri Doria avri at acm.org
Sun Sep 16 17:00:07 UTC 2012


On 15 Sep 2012, at 13:54, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote:

> 
> QWhat does RIPE NCC do with the address space that is returned?


This only relates to the addresses  returned.

Approximately half of all IPv4 addresses (legacy allocations) are sort of not in the system at all.  Some people argue for a marketplace that allows for trading of addresses for other considerations.  As far as I can tell none of the RIRs has really bought into this notion in any way yet.  Neither, if I recall correctly, did the IAB.

So while one can make moral arguments about how everyone should be willing to just be good netizens and give unused legacy blocks back when they no longer need them, others see them as corporate assets, which they may be in the valuation of a company, that they just can't give away.

So far, as far as I can from following various RIR policy lists etc, nothing is being done to enable large scale usage of the nearly half of IPv4 space that remains un-routed and outside the RIR system.  I do not think this topic has really been explored in the ICANn environment.  Though it was brouhht up on Prague.

One problem with any scheme is that most of the unused IPv4 blocks are in one RIR's region, and it is not even certain that one region's RIR freely redistributes to other RIRs, but I am not sure of that.  I am not sure if ICANN or any of its bodies has looked at that.

One advantage, well maybe, of IPv6 is that all of the address range will be in RIR hands from the day 0.  No annoying legacy.

avri



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