[address-policy-wg] 2007-08 New Draft Document Published (Enabling Methods for Reallocation of IPv4 Resources)

> future suggest that their employers refuse to acquire new 
> IPv4 addresses through whatever legitimate means possible 
> (whether through some variant of 2007-08, a grey market, ISP 
> skeletons, or whatever), then the decision power to acquire 
> new IP address space in order to facilitate the continued 
> growth of the company will be taken away from any address 
> market nay-sayers and moved elsewhere in the business to 
> whatever level is required to override the "no markets"
> policy - whether that level be a regular Business Development 
> unit within the company or right up to board level.

If the world did not have an alternative to IPv4 networks,
then I might agree with you. Large companies would indeed buy
up any IP adress space that they can get even if it means
buying a small ISP and disconnecting all their existing customers.

However, IPv6 does exist, and will support "continued growth
of the company" if a company puts some modest effort into getting
ready for IPv6. The fact is that most large organizations are
preparing for IPv6. Enterprises are requesting to see IPv6 
deployment plans in their RFPs for IPv4 service. ISPs are
deploying trial IPv6 deployments in order to identify issues
with their processes and systems, so that they can fix those
issues before 2010-2011 when IPv4 addresses finally become
hard to get.

Publicly traded companies do not have the luxury of sitting
on their hands and waiting until the IPv4 address crisis hits.
They have to be prepared, and as a result, there will be very
few buyers in a future IPv4 address market. Statistically speaking
there will likely be a few companies who did not plan adequately
and who run out in desperation to buy IPv4 addresses. But we 
should not be making policies to cater to these few companies.

There is no IPv4 address market today and we should not be taking
actions that enable a market in the future.

--Michael Dillon