Registries Disagree on Open Market for IPv4 Addresses
DUBAI -- The five Regional Internet Registries (RIR) that allocate IPv4 addresses should “ask ourselves what will we do when there are no addresses,” Axel Pawlik, CEO of RIPE NCC, the operative part of the Reseaux IP Europeens (RIPE), told a Tuesday RIPE meeting. Self-regulatory body RIPE allocates IP addresses in Europe and parts of Asia. Its counterparts are ARIN for North America, LacNIC for Latenamerica, APNic for Asia, and AfriNIC for Africa.
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The RIRs will allocate the next generation of IP addresses, IPv6, but IPv6 uptake has been slow. As IPv4 addresses run out, the RIRs wonder if they should try to prevent or restrict trading of allocated Ipv4 addresses. But “we don’t have any tools for that,” said RIPE Chairman Rob Blokzijl. “There is already a market. If it is good or bad, I don’t know,” said Blokzijl. IPv4 addresses are offered on eBay, which the RIRs tried to stop, Pawlik said.
The market for IPv4 addresses “is not in the future, it is reality right now,” said IP-address expert Remco van Mook. He cited requests by brokers to RIPE seeking several IPv4 address blocks for a customer. “Class-B or /16 blocks would be preferred, but we're willing to consider whatever assets might be available,” read the message. So-called “slash 16” IP address blocks are large blocks very difficult to get from RIRs, said one expert at the RIPE meeting. “Operators get several sales requests every year,” said von Mook.
Each IPv4 address might be worth $4.23 to start, Van Mook said, but the extent to which prices could rise is a topic for speculation. Prohibitive pricing would discourage entry by start-ups, a major downside of an IPv4 market, according to a recent report by MIT economist William Lehr and consultant Thomas Vest. Vest told us he fears the self- regulatory address community “will cease to exist if they go for a market model.”
But APNic and ARIN want to make IPv4 transfers accepted policy. Several policies discussed were intended to put off assignment of the last IP address. Of the five big blocks (/8) that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority had most recently in its pool, one will go to each of the five RIRs, which are debating how to conserve some addresses for future start-ups or innovations.