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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.
IPv4 is like oil. It'll never go away.
Luckily, IPv4 isn't a bad technology.
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).
Slightly used internet address.
Act now and 127.0.0.0 could be yours today!
Only $5.00!
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
IPv4 depletion was a looming problem in 2005, and today it's an even more closely-looming problem. It's not like we discovered more numbers since then.
More of a technical issue ... how are the people in this "black market" going to handle the routing?
Tar. Routes don't get much blacker than that.
How do you secretly buy something that only works, by definition, if the public routing table knows it belongs to you?
i guess.. in the same way the universe will eventually run out of energy.
"It was like a million high school physics teachers crying out in unison, then suddenly silenced."
1) Connect to my dynamic IP address ISP
2) Post ad on eBay for the IP
3) Sell it
4) Disconnect
5) Repeat from 1 to 5
6) Profit!
--- Illogical Spock
If IPv4 addresses become very expensive, people will just ... switch to IPv6.
Yeah. That's how free markets solve problems, be they black, or any other color.
ARIN had a booth at Interop last week. I asked them why they don't confiscate the /8 that's assigned to Haliburton, which is mostly wasted. They said they don't want to get shot.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
I worked on contract in IT dept of an international bank based in the UK, actually somewhat in the north, more I dare not say. They used addresses from 10/8 like crazy, and when they ran out, started using 11/8
Some of the skeptics will think I'm making it up. Battle-hardened IT pros will probably facepalm and know it has the ring of truth and that no-one would possibly come up with such a stupid plan and therefore it must be true!
What happened to IPv5?? Did it go the way of the Oral A toothbrush?
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