[apnic-talk] FW: IP Space
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From: Jim Fleming[SMTP:JimFleming at unety dot net]
Sent: Monday, May 11, 1998 8:19 AM
To: daveg at netsol dot com; dmitchel at nsf dot gov; 'Harold Feld';
JimFleming at unety dot net
Cc: amr at chaos dot com; antitrust at essential dot org; antitrust at usdoj dot gov;
BBURR@ntia.doc.gov; Brock.Meeks@MSNBC.COM; carl at oppedahl dot com;
cgomes at internic dot net; chrisc at netsol dot com; cmueller at metrolink dot net;
dnrc-board at domain-name dot org; Ira_C._Magaziner at oa dot eop dot gov; Jay@Iperdome.com;
jnh at skyscape dot net; karl at cavebear dot com; KathrynKL@aol.com; lsundro at nsf dot gov;
richard@SEXTON.COM; simon at higgs dot com; steve at domainbank dot net
Subject: RE: IP Space
On Monday, May 11, 1998 7:16 AM, Harold Feld[SMTP:hfeld at cov dot com] wrote:
@This may seem a naive question, but how much IP space is there remaining
to administer? I thought that most of the IP addresses had been used (at
least, I have heard a tremendous amount about an IP address shortage).
Also, what happens to IP addresses when the IP-address holder goes under?
Is IP address space property that can be bought and sold along with a
business (or separately) (I know that Arin has a policy designed to
discourage "specualtion" in IP address space, but there is a difference
between speculation and sales of IP address space for legitimate purposes).
@
@I confess, the model I'm familiar with is FCC and frequency licenses.
@
All very good questions...here are my answers...
You have to differentiate between IPv4, IPv8 and IPv6 address spaces.
This is a little like the difference in the AM and FM spectrums. Let's
assume that by IP you mean IPv4.
IPv4 space is hardly used up. If you take a top down view of the space
there are 256 hunks now commonly called /8s. Some of these /8s are
reserved for special uses. Some are allocated to companies like DEC,
HP, Apple, IBM, AT&T, etc. and are hardly used. Those companies use
other pieces of the IPv4 space, some of which is managed by RIPE in
Europe and APNIC in the Asia/Pacific (currently moving to Australia).
ARIN is new to the scene. The U.S. Government (mostly via the NSF)
approved the creation of ARIN to allow NSI to move into a position where
they just had the .COM/.NET/.ORG TLD management. It was more like
the classic movie comedy scene where the military leader asks for
volunteers to step forward and all of the smart people step back, leaving
the volunteers to be the people that did not move.
Via very clever timing and confusing labels and words, the NSF, NSI
and ARIN have worked to take the structure called InterNIC and strip
it of its assets. This would be like taking something called an Air Force
Base and making parts of it private to a point where all that remains
is the runway which is then turned into part of an Interstate highway
that happens to run down the middle of the private development. At
some point, people walk away and say..."Hmm, what happened to
that Air Force Base that used to be here?"
Continuing, ARIN has apparently been handed billions of dollars in
IPv4 assets. Because ARIN manages the IN-ADDR.ARPA zone, it
essentially controls the entire IPv4 address space. Yes, people will
claim that the IANA (aka Jon Postel) controls it, but Jon Postel is
on ARIN's Board of Directors. Also, the domain name registrations
handled by ARIN in IN-ADDR.ARPA determine who has been allocated
parts of the space. As an example, 1/256th of the IPv4 address space
has been allocated to DEC[1]. That is all 32 bit addresses that begin
with 16. The IN-ADDR.ARPA delegation would be 16.IN-ADDR.ARPA.
You could go through and do an inventory of all 256 of the /8s in the
IPv4 space by looking at the domain names (or DNS zones) such as:
0.IN-ADDR.ARPA
1.IN-ADDR.ARPA
2.IN-ADDR.ARPA
...
253.IN-ADDR.ARPA
254.IN-ADDR.ARPA
255.IN-ADDR.ARPA
If you did this you would find a very disorganized situation. Because of
years of chaotic management, mostly by the U.S. Government, we have
a situation where some groups have huge allocations and some have
small allocations. As a group, ISPs have a very small part of the IPv4
address space.
Much of the IPv4 address space remains "Reserved by the IANA".
This is a problematic policy position because IP addresses do not
wear-out. These blocks could be put into use to save ISPs and other
companies millions of dollars in renumbering costs and aniexty, but
instead, the IP space is controlled and made into a scarce resource.
This creates an artificial value, and now companies pay large sums
in the grey markets to obtain space which they should be able to
easily get from the U.S. Government and other governments. Of course,
this is not currently the case, because people are trying to move
the resources to private companies, like ARIN, so that selected
people can profit from the lease/sale of the assets. Yes, ARIN will
claim they are not selling or leasing addresses. They claim they
are providing a service for a fee and addresses just happen to come
with the service. [BTW, Why the IRS approved ARIN as an non-profit
company is beyond me. The IRS regulations clearly state that
non-profit companies can not be engaged in providing services
commonly provided by for-profit companies.]
Continuing...the point needs to be raised that IP addresses do not
wear out and as companies "go under" there should be a natural way
they are recycled. This is currently not the case. Because of the
mentality that IP addresses never come back, people in control of
these resources take the position that the resources must be handed
out slowly [and of course, they get paid high salaries to do that].
I have suggested for years that an approach be considered where
IPv4 addresses are allocated in a manner similar to IPv8 addresses.
People that earn high salaries managing IPv4 addresses disparage
these approaches. Unfortunately, the U.S. Government officials do
not understand the issues and they continue to make decisions in
favor of the scarce resource methods. All of this is back up by the
few companies that have huge allocations.
The good news is that IPv8 addresses will not be handled in this
manner. Huge blocks of IPv8 addresses are automatically delegated
to various Internet stakeholders in a fair and equitable manner. This
helps to prevent the situations we have today where the resources
are in the hands of a few and they are allowed to charge high fees
for what should be free or close to it.
As I pointed out in my comments on the Green Paper. I think that
more emphasis should be placed on IP address issues than domain
names. Domain names are the sizzle and IP addresses are the steak.
Domain names are the billboards and IP addresses are the farm land.
Internet leaders keep encouraging the domain name discussions
because they do not want people to get to the real issues which are
allocation of IP addresses.
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/130dftmail/03_23_98-2.htm
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/130dftmail/unir.txt
Companies that have IP addresses prosper and save millions of
dollars in administration costs. Companies that do not have IP addresses
can struggle. ISPs are trained early in the game that they have to
pay homage to the people with the IP address resources or they
will not progress in the Internet industry. This is why they toe the line
and follow the IANA.
Recently, people are starting to realize that companies with huge IP
allocations have idle assets which can now easily be leased or sold.
People have also pointed out that these companies have a duty to their
shareholders to capitalize on these assets. In some cases, the CEO
of the company does not even know they have the assets which should
appear on their balance sheets and in their annual reports.
As various U.S. Government agencies get involved in these matters
we are beginning to see a better understanding of the issues. In the
past, the National Science Foundation managers were not prepared
to deal with these issues or they chose to make decisions that favored
their friends and cronies as opposed to what makes sense for society.
Why they were allowed to do this is a subject that needs a complete
investigation. The NSF has been alerted to the problems over the years
and still to this day continues to work behind the scenes to try to
manipulate these markets and the U.S. Government processes.
Hopefully, there will soon be a response from the Department of Commerce.
Some claim that another document will be released this week or next.
Hopefully, it will begin to address some of these issues. In the meantime,
from an IPv8 point of view, we have to proceed and assume that society
will get the IPv4 mess cleaned up. IPv8 only depends on IPv4 (and IPv6)
transports for the interim deployments. To that end, we should not care.
Unfortunately, it is hard to not care, when one sees so many people
suffering at the hands of a few.
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===================================================
-
Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation - http://www.unir.net
IPv8 - Designed for the Rest of the Human Race
AM Radio Stations ---> http://www.DOT.AM
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