John wrote: > A transfer policy mechanism which allows receipt up to a limit based on > current holdings provides far more certainty for those who wish to plan > for the future, as they can go to market knowing precisely that limit.
What is the virtue of a limit? It's not the prevention of speculation and hoarding. Those will always happen outside the view of ARIN policy. Speculators and hoarders will buy blocks on the open market and simply not engage ARIN because there's no reason to. Contract law makes it trivial to ignore ARIN. It's not conservation - there is no such thing as conservation in IPv4. 85% of the address space ARIN issued over the last 10 years went to less than 20 companies. (At a significant penalty, I might add, to the little guys and especially new entrants, who got screwed in ARIN policy for 17 years.) Before anyone answers this, please ensure you're knowledgeable about the IPv4 market today. I am. I characterize it as VERY robust. Tons of supply, with new suppliers showing up every month. Outside of China, prices are low; it's a buyer's market. There's no speculation that I can find, short of a one-off speculator who is a well-known fraudster. There is certainly hoarding by the larger companies, but ARIN policy today isn't stopping that, and no policy passed here can stop that. Think about that last sentence carefully. ARIN policy is powerless to stop hoarding. So how do we write policy that helps the non-big guys? By removing artificial policy barriers that require lots of paperwork with ARIN beyond simply, "I bought this /20 from this company, please update Whois". ARIN's job should simply be to verify the seller is the bona fide registrant, and that the seller agrees to the transfer, and that the buyer signs an RSA and pays whatever fees are necessary to cover the costs of the transaction processing. Let's simplify ARIN processes, make ARIN policy fit the REALITY of network operations in a post-exhaustion world, and move on with talking about RPKI, DNSSEC, IPv6 and other actually important things that will shape our future. David _______________________________________________ PPML You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List ([email protected]). Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at: http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml Please contact [email protected] if you experience any issues.
