Hi Larry,
"Personally I suspect that without needs testing the "haves" would have had
it all a long time ago.
I have felt the same frustration, as a small provider, trying to meet the
80% requirement can be almost
impossible without gaming the system due to numerous small holes in a small
allocation.
That said, I worry about any company that could purchase a couple of Billion
dollars of IPV4."
What is being expressed here is a fear of hoarding in the absence of a needs
test. A couple of billion dollars of IPv4 at current prices would yield
about 15 /8s. Even if some company wanted to risk those funds with IPv6
transition threatening to erase them, there is no single seller who could
offer 15 /8s, nor would the sequestration of 15 /8s destroy the market,
since this amount represents just 25% of the estimated market size of 1
billion addresses. Since the buyer and seller will be disclosed and
registered under any no-needs policy, there is little threat of a stealthy
move here, and any buyer seeking to corner or manipulate the market knows he
does so at the peril of forcing the IPv6 transition. The best protection
against this is continued work towards IPv6 and the establishment of a
reliable, open, and global IPv4 market with at least the same level of
transparency into registration as we have now. As a broker, I actively
sought out speculators to bid for addresses in the Nortel sale. This was a
prime opportunity to acquire 660,000 addresses at the floor of the market,
but it was regarded as too risky by almost all. In the intervening years I
became aware of other opportunities to acquire address space without needs
tests, but I never found anybody interested in buying addresses on pure
speculation. In any case, this fear can only reasonably be expressed in the
context of a complete removal of needs tests, and could not be applied to a
more limited removal of the needs test such as that proposed in 2014-14.
"Many of us fear that if need is not considered in the transfer market the
little guys will find that none is available at any price."
We are three years into the open, post-Microsoft/Nortel market and there is
no evidence of hoarding in my experience. I have never fielded a phone call
or email from any company or individual seeking addresses they didn't plan
to utilize at some point, although I have fielded plenty from people seeking
addresses that for whatever reason ARIN policy would prohibit them from
registering. Perhaps other brokers on the list might report on their
experiences.
"Like it or not the big guys have an advantage. Let's make sure that
"cornering the market" isn't one of them."
Little guys benefit from the dropping of needs test for small transfers. No
need to navigate the ARIN process if you just need a /24 and you can't get
one from your upstream, or not at a reasonable cost, or because you feel
more secure with your own space, or because you don't wish to game the
system. Support of 2014-14 would allow small companies to have this option
while preventing hoarding or speculation through limits on size and number
of transfers. Perhaps you care to comment on whether you might consider
support of 2014-14 at the current size of /16 or at another size that you
might feel more appropriate?
Regards,
Mike Burns
IPTrading.com
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