[address-policy-wg] Millions of Internet Addresses Are Lying Idle

Jeffrey,

On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 00:13 -0700, Jeffrey A. Williams wrote:
> All,
> 
>   Seems that all the hub bub regarding IPv4 address space being
> very limited is really not so.  As I and others have advocated
> for years, reclaiming unused IPv4 space is needed.
> 
> See:
> The most comprehensive scan of the entire internet for several decades
>  http://www.technologyreview.com/web/21528/ shows that millions of
> allocated addresses simply aren't being used. 

Reclaiming unused IPv4 space is very expensive. The RIR system was never
designed with reclamation in mind, and fear or selfishness on the part
of existing participants has prevented even small moves towards fixing
this (see discussions of 2007-01 for more insight).

What this means is, even if the space is available to be reclaimed the
costs for getting IPv4 space will be much, much higher than today. The
idea of a market may help to lower these costs (or not), but the costs
will still be there. Any time you see a change in a fundamental resource
after decades of relatively low cost, there will be economic upset(*).

When you into a black hole, nothing magical happens when you cross the
event horizon. But your situation is very different. Likewise, when the
last IPv4 address is allocated from the IANA to an RIR, no immediate
catastrophe will happen, but the rules of the game will have changed.

--
Shane

(*) For example:
    http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/06/rising-gas-pric.html