[address-policy-wg] 2013-03 New Draft Document and Impact Analysis Published (No Need - Post-Depletion Reality Adjustment and Cleanup)

* Nick Hilliard

> On 23/09/2013 19:48, Tore Anderson wrote:
>> We have a 24-month cooling-off period in our transfer policy where a
>> recently received allocation may not be transferred further. I am not
>> sure that I would agree that this is a «short or medium term» (as it
>> says in the linked-to specification) investment horizon, when we're
>> talking about IPv4. I believe this cooling-off period in itself works as
>> a deterrence against some that would otherwise be interested in engaging
>> in speculation, at least the short-term kind.
> 
> I'm not sure why you think this will act as a deterrent to resource
> transfers, given that we all generally agree that increasing bureaucratic
> load will generally only serve to push transfer agreements underground.

Hi Nick,

First off, I did not say I believe it will act as a deterrent to
resource transfers in general, only against the speculative kind - i.e.,
when an LIR buys an allocation one day for €N hoping to sell it for >€N
a month later - all while having no intention on using the addresses for
something in the interim. Such activity is simply not sanctioned by the
address policy.

The above presumes that the "speculator LIRs" in question will adhere to
our address policy, of course. If you start out with the presumption
that the "speculator LIRs" will ignore address policy anyway, the whole
discussion on the policy's preventive effect against speculators is moot.

Secondly, I did not say "will" in future tense, nor did I suggest that
this is an *increased* bureaucratic load brought by 2013-03. The
24-month quarantine is there in today's policy, 2013-03 doesn't touch
it. The WG could of course debate whether or not the 24-month quarantine
itself makes sense or should be removed due to it only contributing to
the creation of a "black market", but that's food for another policy
proposal.

Finally, and just for the record: I do not think the 24-month quarantine
is a deterrent to resource transfers to "conventional" LIRs that intend
to use the addresses for their End Users and/or their own
infrastructure. 24 months is probably a shorter period than the
depreciation period of the equipment the addresses would typically be
assigned to in this case.

Best regards,
Tore Anderson