Fwd: Suggestion: charging for IPv4 space

Hi Nick,

On Oct 22, 2008, at 5:36 AM, Nick Hilliard wrote:

>> - currently, neither IPv4 nor IPv6 address delegation are directly  
>> linked to
>> any kind of significant recurent *annual* fee;
>
> In RIPE-land, it is likely that this will change shortly, at least  
> for PI
> address resources (i.e. IPv4, ipv6 and ASNs).
>
>> So what's the hurdle?
>
> The hurdle is that we operate in a society with a planning horizon  
> of 3
> months.  If something isn't going to add to the bottom line within  
> the next
> quarter, it won't get done.  Period.

Do you really think that the the planning horizon was that much longer  
ten years ago, when CIDR was implemented?
Granted, CIDR may not have been as big a challenge for established  
service providers to implement on the fly, but it would be hard to  
claim that it actually added to anybody's bottom line in the short  
term. I certainly don't recall end users clamoring for CIDR in the way  
that some have suggested is necessary to justify implementing IPv6...

I'm not suggesting that the transition will be easy, only that there  
is a real precedent for imagining that players in this industry are  
capable of taking a slightly longer-term approach to calculating the  
benefits of technological advances, even ones with nontrivial upfront  
costs.

> Your suggestion boils down to: let's create a tax on IPv4 to help  
> introduce
> IPv6.  In other words, you are creating an invented demand  
> proposition, and
> we all know how well those work in practice (cf. the ISO protocol  
> debacle).
> You're also suggesting that a non-governmental body engage in the  
> process
> of tax collection, and we also know how well that works in practice  
> (cf.
> the InterNIC $50pa domain name debacle).



> The doom that you are talking about will happen, and that is a good  
> thing.
>
> It is a good thing because the only way to get people to change from  
> IPv4
> to IPv6 is to let them feel the pain of running their IPv4 services on
> empty for long enough.  I've been in ISPs where they have lived in
> self-imposed NAT worlds with static addressing.  They changed to  
> public
> addressing purely for business reasons.  The same will happen for  
> ipv4 and
> ipv6.

How confident are you that these changes will cause IPv6 and IPv4 to  
be mutually substitutable (enough) before the lack of IPv4 represents  
an absolute barrier to entry for aspiring new network enterprises and  
routing service providers? If the latter happens before the former,  
the choice may cease to be one that individual network operators get  
to make on their own, at least in countries where antitrust laws are  
enforced.

Cheers,

TV


> Nick
> -- 
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