[Wolves] It's the end of the internet as we know it

[Ron Wellsted]

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On 04/02/11 13:33, David Goodwin wrote:

> 
> Well, your local network may be IPv6, but from your sky broadband onwards it isn't :-(
> 
> I suspect we'll see attempts to reclaim IPs from e.g. Digital/HP/IBM etc who have /8s or whatever and clearly don't need them.
> 
> And then there will become a reasonable market in IPv4 subnets/IPs, they'll get slightly pricey and then finally we'll see ISPs deploy IPv6.

Well it has to switch somewhere :-)

There may be attempts to recover various subnets but there are several
problems in this area:

Companies that have partly used an original /8 will not be happy if they
have to start reconfiguring their networks because a /22 is being handed
back to ICANN.  Any such project will be expensive and time consuming
(and in many cases may just take too long).  Imagine if ARIN/ICANN went
to IBM and said "We want as many IPv4 addresses back from your /8s as
possible".  It would probably take several years just to go through the
courts (and I don't believe ICANN have that sort of money, but IBM do),
before the project would even start, then add at least a year to plan
and 2-3 years to implement.  The actual time scale required is 4-8
months, not years.

A market might spring up in unused blocks, but who really "owns" an IP
address block? ICANN allocates to the RIRs, and the RIRs then sub
allocate to the ISPs/end users.  Again an area that could make lawyers
rich while the arguments get bogged down in court.

There would also be problems with size and complexity of the routing
tables that would be required. LINX is currently handling over 250,000
routes internally and 300,000 routes globally just for the UK.

I think that any such market would be limited by practical
considerations (geography, ISP).  We may see some ISPs getting taken
over for their address space, not their customer base.

- -- 
Ron Wellsted
ron at wellsted.org.uk http://www.wellsted.org.uk
N 52.567623, W 2.136111 Linux Counter No. 202120
Ekiga: 645022
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