Black Market May Develop For IPv4 Addresses 282
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."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to see the black market part (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Can /8 companies resell subnets? (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Re:I fail to see the black market part (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Truth is (Score:2, Insightful)
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.)
Re:Can /8 companies resell subnets? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this is that it's likely to be more expensive to reconfigure their networks, internal address allocations, and everybody's routing tables in the world for those cut up /8's than it will be to just upgrade to IPv6. If somebody really needs v4 addresses that badly and want some space from these /8 holders, then they'll need to make it worth their while to start splitting them up.
Re:For Sale (Score:3, Insightful)
There's only an estimated 10^82 atoms in the universe. Just to put your 10^999 in perspective.
Re:Public IPs at premium prices (Score:5, Insightful)
my provider uses 10.* addresses there therefore I had to change the addressing scheme on my LAN because I didn't want stuff routed accidentally... pisses me off... I'm sure more and more providers will do that... and that's accidents waiting to happen.
Ahhh, I long for the days when a private address was garanteed to be private. why don't they switch already to ipv6... it's been 15 years. I know it will irk some people but it's stable enough and it's about time... and as time passes it's going to get harder because people will be more dependent on the internet.
Most OSs & routers are compatible... I say it's time to require the change... give people a 6 month warning and switch... should be plenty of time to address most issues
Re:A black market may develop (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:I fail to see the black market part (Score:3, Insightful)
Any market that forms that people don't want to form is a black market. They'd prefer some "benevolent" agency to dole out the limited amount, nevermind that a few organizations are holding massive amounts of unused IP ranges. Making them worth money will encourage them to release them, but these people are afraid of markets.
I think you're confusing "afraid of markets" with "afraid of unregulated markets".
If you don't understand why unregulated markets are bad, feel free to pickup a history book and look at the American business landscape in the 100 years preceding the 1930s.
Re:A black market may develop (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:I fail to see the black market part (Score:4, Insightful)
Not "nevermind" - that's exactly why the IP addresses should be doled out by a regulator and NOT resold. Just because some chain of company buyouts leads back from you to somebody that requested a /8 when they were given away for free, does NOT mean you have somehow "earned" millions of dollars in any meaningful sense. There is NO reason to financially reward such behavior.
The free-market-true-believers-under-all-circumstances crowd is correct that markets always find some solution, but why can't they see that sometimes it's a bad one?
Re:I fail to see the black market part (Score:5, Insightful)
Except where the corporations can buy whatever regulated market they wish to, and individuals have no choice in the matter. I agree with you, but the last decade, at least, has shown that government regulation in this country is for sale to the highest bidder.
SB
Re:I fail to see the black market part (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Public IPs at premium prices (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Doubt it (Score:1, Insightful)
I'd be using it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I fail to see the black market part (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa, dude, whoa. Do NOT try to start a fight with a free-market ideologue and try to use facts or historical evidence to support your position. That's even more foolish than trying to convince a creationist about evolution by using the fossil record as evidence. These people will never, ever, ever admit that their simple little ideology doesn't perfectly explain the complexity of the real world.
Just let it go, man. Save yourself the trouble.
He really didn't understand (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:I fail to see the black market part (Score:1, Insightful)
-or in the 10 years preceding the 2010s.