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Black Market May Develop For IPv4 Addresses
GMGruman writes "Everyone knows that we're running out of traditional IPv4 Internet addresses and that switching to IPv6 is the answer — yet foot-dragging by IT departments and vendors means the problem is still on the back burner. IPv4/IPv6 coexistence is now expected to last for 5 years. In this article, Mel Beckman explains how this is all leading to a black market in traditional IPv4 addresses that will catch many people off-guard, and boost Internet access prices sky-high."
You mean they will start NATing more often for residential customers. Long gone will be the default of having a dynamic Public IP address. Want one of those? That will cost extra.
Life is not for the lazy.
So if I have IPs, and someone else needs IPs, I sell them some of my IPs... What's the problem here? For that matter, that is how it works for anyone who's not a big provider. When I wanted static IPs for my cable connection I asked my cable ISP. They said sure, $5/month/each.
I'm just not sure I see a problem. Goes double since higher IPv4 prices may encourage IPv6. Consider:
Say I'm an ISP, we have all old v4 hardware. To the extent our routers support v6, it is all in software meaning that any significant amount of IPv6 will overload them. They only have IPv4 ASICs. I don't wanna upgrade because it is expensive. So I keep getting more and more customers that want IPs. However, I run out, my allocation is gone. ARIN says "Sorry, all space is allocated." So I go looking around. Turns out I can buy a /24... But for 500x what I used to. Ouch. Well then, maybe time to get some IPv6 hardware.
Likewise it could encourage customers to want IPv6. A company buys a net connection and says "We need 32 IPs." ISP says "Well you can have 32 v4 IPs for $3200/month, or you can have as many IPv6 IPs as you want, and 1 IPv4 IP for 6-to-4." Company says "Oh ok, v6 may be more of a pain, but it is worth it to save the money."
What it comes down to is we need to migrate away from IPv4. That'll be a long process, but one thing that'll help it along is if there's economic incentive to move to IPv6. Right now, the situation is generally that there is an economic DISincentive to move to v6. You need new hardware, sometimes new software, etc. It costs money and IPv4 works fine. However, if v4 starts costing more, that makes v6 more attractive.
So I don't see this as a "black market" nor do I see it as a big problem.
Could an organization with a /8 resell a block of their IP addresses? I can't imagine how someone like MIT or US Postal Service, could use 16million IP addresses, or HP use 32million (they have their own plus Compaq/DECs).
IPv4 might be, but IPv4 addresses certainly are not like oil. The remaining addresses are not harder to find or costlier to acquire. The rate at which these addresses are assigned will increase right up to the very end, when suddenly there won't be new any new allocations, first by the IANA to the RIRs and then by the regional internet registries to ISPs. The supply of IPv4 addresses is finite. We know that we need more addresses than there are, the vast majority of addresses are already assigned and the rate of assignment is increasing. Right now everybody's hoarding IPv4 addresses: They're used as leniently as possible. Got a server? Get three addresses automatically. Why? Because that's a good enough excuse to get an allocation from the RIR. When there are no more allocations available, then the big redistribution of IPv4 addresses begins. Customers will have to start paying for addresses that were formerly included for free. This way there will still be addresses available for new applications, but they'll be taken from other applications (ones where they're not really needed at first, but eventually it will be a matter of who pays more.)
There's only an estimated 10^82 atoms in the universe. Just to put your 10^999 in perspective.
According to the article, that time was yesterday.
The authors of TFA estimate that in less than a year ARIN will have no more /8 blocks left to allocate.
According to the article, that time was yesterday.
The authors of TFA estimate that in less than a year ARIN will have no more /8 blocks left to allocate.
Which has nothing to do with how many are sitting unused by ISPs and large companies sitting on big IP blocks.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
....or you could use IPv6.
I'd be using IPv6 if only my ISP supported it. I think all ISPs should get on with getting it out there, and then give us one by default. Then no one would have to worry, except the ISPs. Because IPv4's going to run out so soon, I'd recommend a nice round date for the deadline for the Internet switchover - 1/1/2011.
One thing he got exactly right is that "If people have legitimate rules that permit address transfers, they'll use them instead of a black market." There is now a formal ARIN transfer policy which will allow transfers of address space for payment. This is the critical bit that will probably prevent any significant black market from developing and, more importantly, having any real impact on the Internet at large.
The other thing that is absolutely right was his calling me an "pseudo economist". I am an engineer, not an economist, even if I do play one from time to time.
the one things I must say is that the IPv4 address space is near exhaustion and things will change. The adoption of IPv6, it undertaken soon and in a competent manner, looks to be far the most likely way to the future. Not the only way, but the only way I see to continue the growth of the Internet as we know it today. It does not mean that massive NAT implementation, which will eventually re-shape the Internet into a very different thing, won't be what happens.
Then again, I am only a "pseudo Economist" and even the real economists don't agree very often.
Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired