Re: IPv4 flag day

David Conrad via NANOG <[email protected]> Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:32:41 +0000

Newsgroups	gmane.org.operators.nanog
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

On Jun 19, 2026, at 10:35 AM, Saku Ytti via NANOG <[email protected]> wrote:
> Some big tech shops own billions worth of IPv4, and are buying more.

If you say so (haven’t looked recently but have no reason to do more than quibble).

> Is this desirable?

Pragmatically, yes.

If you want the world to migrate to IPv6, there needs to be a reason better than “it has more bits!”. There is now an additional and very easily understood signal associated with choosing between IPv4 and IPv6, one that is easily understood by the beancounters behind network operators: the cost of addressing. If you’re an SMB with an IPv4 /24, you are now sitting on an asset that is worth between US$8K to US$12K on the spot market. How many public IPv4 addresses does the SMB actually need, given they’re probably using cloud/SAAS for their public Internet presence? How much would it cost to turn up IPv6 service (including IPv4aas) on their internal infrastructure? Would that cost be more or less than the asset price and migration costs? 

"Big tech shops” buying up all the addresses would drive the asset value up, increasing the likelihood the beancounters will see incentives to migrate. 

Regards,
-drc

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