Tag Archive for ARIN

RB | April 30, 2011
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IPv4 Address Grey Market Emerges

The UK’s Register reports that depletion of the world’s IPv4 address space is spawning a new development in the Internet address space, IPv4 address trading. According to the Register,  German Phython developer Martin von Loewis launched a site called Tradipv4.com in March. The site is offering IPv4 addresses for $3 for v4 addresses located in American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)  and $4 for those in the Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) region.

TradeIPv4IPv4 address trading, however, is still a grey market idea now. FireceTelecom reports that to make sure that unmanaged address transfers don’t compromise network operations or security, the Internet Society (ISOC) said that buyers and sellers should make sure any “transfers be affected per appropriate Regional Internet Registry (RIR) processes.” Citing its own estimate of prices reaching $11 per address, ISOC said, “We strongly urge that such transfers be affected per appropriate RIR processes.” Unmanaged address transfers will undermine network operations, and it could raise security issues since anonymous address spaces can be spoofed according to ISOC.

Internet Society logoOn their FAQ page, Tradeip4.com says its auctions can cover both the sale and lease of addresses, subject to RIR policies. Some of these policies, the site notes, have grey areas. For example, APNIC policy aims to discourage address transfer by applying what amounts to a 12 month embargo on the originating party receiving new addresses. However, Tradeip4.com dismisses this as irrelevant, since APNIC’s space is exhausted and no new blocks are being assigned according to FierceTelecom. Despite these concerns, Tradeip4.com, maintains that it can sell and lease IPv4 addresses and maintains that it follows RIR policies.

This is not just a SMB issue Microsoft (MSFT),  recently bought Nortel‘s IPv4 addresses (Which I wrote about here). Craig Labovitz, Chief Scientist for network security vendor Arbor Networks, told FierceTelecom that Nortel’s deal with Microsoft reflects how IPv4 depletion is becoming a more pressing issue, now that IPv4 is a scarce resource.

IPv4 addresses have not been a scarce resource and no one has had to pay more, but what really is starting to change is Microsoft spending money to buy Nortel’s IPv4 address space.  For the first time, there’s now a price associated with V4, and one you have a price you start having providers charge for it and start seeing people having a reason to care.

The Register article notes that the Canadian government, via its Industry Canada department, is also against the trade of IPv4 addresses, and it has weighed in on the sale of Nortel’s addresses to Microsoft. In a letter discussed on CircleID, Industry Canada expressed its support for the long-standing position that addresses are not property and therefore cannot be traded.

rb-

I see several problems with the  IPv4 grey market. Trading in IPv4 is just another sign of resistance to IPv6. Firms with a global view have to realize that reallocation of a handful of  IPv4 will not make a difference in an IPv6 world. Another issue could be the routability of an IPv4 address originally assigned to APIC and traded on the grey-market to RIPE. Right now there is no guarantee that these type of addresses will be recognized. There are also political issues, the Canadian government opposes the IP grey-market. Industry Canada has expressed its support for the long-standing position that addresses are not property and therefore cannot be traded.

The ISOC says IPv4 addresses are worth $11.00, MSFT paid $11.25 and ARIN addresses are currently (04-30-11) trading $7.00 per IP. on tradeipv4.com so MSFT appears to have overpaid for the Nortel address range. The bigger issue is the change in nature of an IP address.

What do you think?

Are grey market IPv4 addresses woth it?

Has your firm started its transition to IPv6?

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RB | October 22, 2010
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IPv4 Doomsday Pushed Back

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) announced this afternoon (10-20-10) that Interop has returned its unneeded Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address space. The ARIN Press Release explains that Interop was originally allocated a /8 before ARIN’s existence and the availability of smaller-sized address blocks.

Another press release indicates that Interop founder Dan Lynch acquired the addresses block to allow for unfettered Interoperability Testing between TCP/IP equipment vendors in the formative years of the Internet. Interop will continue to use a small part of the original grant to continue Interop’s 25-year mission to foster industry-wide interoperability, while returning the rest of the address block to ARIN for the greater good of the Internet community.  The organization recently realized it was only using a small part of its address block and that returning the rest to ARIN would be for the greater good of the Internet community.

ARIN will accept the returned space and not reissue it for a short period, per existing operational procedure. After the hold period, ARIN will follow global policy at that time and return it to the global free pool or distribute the space to those organizations in the ARIN region with documented need, as appropriate.

With less than 5% of the IPv4 address space left in the global free pool, ARIN warns that Interop’s return will not significantly extend the life of IPv4. ARIN continues to emphasize the need for all Internet stakeholders to adopt the next generation of Internet Protocol, IPv6.

rb-

As the original poster at Slashdot points out, if any of the other IPv4 /8 address holders return their unused addresses, the IPv4 exhaustion date would be pushed back even further. I wonder what some of these companies plan on doing with all of these IP addresses?

  • HP has 32 million publicly routable addresses (16 million of its own and 16 million from DEC which HP acquired when it ingested Compaq) most of which seem to used to handle VoIP calls to India for sales and support calls.
  • Is Ford going to install a IPv4/IPv6 gateway on all the cars with My Ford Touch, an upgrade of Sync, its in-car Internet service with Microsoft?
  • How is the USPS using it 16 million IP addresses?

Some IPv4 /8 Address Holders

PrefixDesignationDate
003/8General Electric Company 1994-05
004/8 Level 3 Communications, Inc.1992-12
008/8 Level 3 Communications, Inc.1992-12
009/8IBM 1992-08
012/8 AT&T Bell Laboratories 1995-06
013/8Xerox Corporation 1991-09
015/8Hewlett-Packard Company 1994-07
016/8 Digital Equipment Corporation 1994-11
017/8Apple Computer Inc. 1992-07
018/8MIT 1994-01
019/8Ford Motor Company 1995-05
034/8 Halliburton Company 1993-03
035/8MERIT Computer Network 1994-04
040/8Eli Lily & Company 1994-06
048/8Prudential Securities Inc. 1995-05
054/8Merck and Co., Inc. 1992-03
056/8 US Postal Service 1994-06
The allocation of IPv4 address space to various registries is listed at www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/ipv4-address-space.xml.

This gadget has been developed by Takashi Arano, Intec NetCore

Category: IPv6, Networking | Tags: , , , , ,
RB | November 7, 2009
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IPv6 Growing Despite Economy

ipv6The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) reports that demands for IPv6 address space is growing.  According to the 10-19-09 article, Next-generation Internet defies recession on NetworkWorld, during the first nine months of 2009, ARIN  received 300 requests from carriers for blocks of IPv6 address space. This compares to 250 requests received in all of 2008 and 2007.

“We’re seeing an uptick in IPv6 address space requests; it’s a very significant aringrowth rate,” says John Curran, president and CEO of ARIN. “We’ve seen a slight slowdown in IPv4 address space requests…It’s probably dropped off 10% or 20% year over year.”

Curran says ARIN is beginning to see ISPs such as Comcast and Verizon Wireless put a great deal of effort into migrating from IPv4-based networks to those built using IPv6.

“ISPs are asking for IPv6 addresses so they can make their networks IPv6-enabled so they are ready [for the future],” Curran says. “We give each ISP enough IPv6 addresses to support 4 billion networks, and each network can contain trillions and trillions of hosts.”

Curran says the recession is not hampering carriers’ interest in IPv6. “IPv6 solves a problem that hasn’t happened yet. So seeing any demand is surprising, and it means that organizations are planning ahead,” Curran says. “The current weakness in the economy…is not dampening down IPv6 demand significantly because IPv6 is right around the corner for ISPs. We may be two years away from the IPv4 free pool of addresses running out, but two years if you’re an ISP is enough time to get one network deployed. Two years is within everyone’s planning horizon.”

ARIN plans several policy changes to push carriers towards IPv6 adoption. These include:

* Allowing ARIN to reduce the size of IPv4 address space allocations to carriers as the industry gets closer to IPv4 address depletion.

* Increasing access to IPv6 address space by removing the requirement for carriers to first demonstrate that they have hundreds of customers.

* Allowing carriers to run multiple, discrete IPv6 networks that don’t have to be connected to each other, such as community networks.

* Reconsideration of a current policy that requires the regional registries including ARIN to evenly divide up any IPv4 space they are able to recover.

This gadget has been developed by Takashi Arano, Intec NetCore

Category: IPv6, Networking | Tags: , , ,
RB | May 22, 2007
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IPv6 is coming

updated 10-04-08

Here’s a good graphical representation of the status of IPv4 addresses from ars techica.

IPv4 exhaustion chart

updated 03-21-08
Here’s a doomsday clock for the end of the IPv4 world, courtesy of the IPv4 Address Report

Gadget by Takashi Arano’s Intec NetCore (Details here).

ars technica has an article where ARIN is encouraging a migration to IPv6. The article in part states;

According to ARIN’s statistics, 19 percent of the IPv4 address space is still available, with 13 percent unavailable and 68 percent “allocated.” The group is reluctant to make predictions on when the supply of IPv4 addresses will run out, choosing instead to watch distribution and consumption trends so that others can do the predicting. “Those forecasts have some variation, but it is clear that this could be an issue as soon as 2010,” said the ARIN spokesperson.

Category: IPv6, Networking | Tags: , , , ,
 

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