[address-policy-wg] Transfer Requirements for IPv4 Allocations

On Sat, 25 Apr 2015, Infinity Telecom SRL wrote:

> How its possible to ask RIPE NCC in 2010-2011 to give you bunch of /15 
> /16 /17 and to day.. your company not need it any more..

Some people have started putting their customer base behind NAT44(4) to 
shift IPv4 address usage from a customer base that will not complain too 
loudly to end up behind NAT44(4), to a customer base where NAT44(4) would 
cause a lot of problem.

So this "need" is always relative. I don't know if you're trying to claim 
that the providers didn't need these addresses?

After the investment in NAT44 has been taken (which might have involved 
hundreds of thousands or millions of EUR), some might discover that they 
actually can do without some IPv4 addresses they needed before, and thus 
they might put it on the market because it makes business sense. This 
doesn't mean they didn't need it, and these addresses can always be proven 
to be needed, it's just that if the market price for IPv4 addresses is 
high enough, then it makes sense to sell.

It's like my old chairs I have in the corner, that I use occasionally. If 
I get enough money for them, I might sell them. Does this mean I do not 
need them? Well, I can prove to you that I do use them (thus I have some 
kind of need for them), but I can find alternatives if I get enough money. 
This is a grey area, not black and white.

> Very hard to understand this..
>
> Right now i should find a why to help new LIRs or old LIRs, but truly 
> companies not ghosts that want to make profit !

That's what the current policy proposal change is all about, to make sure 
that the business case for "start LIR, get /22, transfer /22, shut down 
LIR" isn't too much better than the market price for IPv4 addresses. 
Exactly to stop people absuing the system for profit.

Yes, it's profit even if you keep it for yourself and don't sell it, 
because you've now lowered your cost, acquiring a resource at a lower 
price than you would have if you followed the intent of the policy.

You seem to mix up intent of policy, and what the policy actually says. 
The intent has always been to assure available IPv4 space to new entrants 
to the market, so they can get started. So if you did the "start LIR, get 
/22, transfer /22, shut down LIR" then you might not have violated the 
policy, but you were not following the intent of why the policy is the way 
it is. So that's why the policy is now proposed to be changed, so that it 
more closely follows the intent behind it.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se