[address-policy-wg] 2017-03 New Policy Proposal (Reducing Initial IPv4 Allocation, aiming to preserve a minimum of IPv4 space)

Hi all,

I think it’s worth remembering that there is a time lag between policies being implemented and them having an effect on the market.

Forgive me if I go into a bit of speculation, but where would we be if RIRs hadn’t implemented a “last /8” policy?  The RIPE NCC’s coffers would almost certainly be dry and the only realistic means of obtaining IPv4 addresses would be through the open market.  The price would be higher than it is now, but would IPv6 deployment be any higher?  Existing companies would be in the same situation they are in now, with no more incentive to deploy IPv6 (where is that killer app?), and some small companies would not have been able to get off the ground.

What this policy is trying to do is get around that fact that a lot of the industry (probably not the ones on this list) still have their head in the sand as far as IPv4 depletion goes.  It’s “I’m alright Jack”, and it is taking longer than anyone expected to get the message across.  I’m not convinced running dry is going to change that.

However, the message is getting across, slowly but surely, and IPv6 adoption is growing not just among the sort of people that participate in these discussions and network operator fora, but in the enterprise networks and even hotel and cafe wireless networks.

We have to believe we will get there in the end, but we need to make sure we have the resources to get there, it’s too late to change policies when we are already out of addresses.  If we ran out of IPv4 resources today, will it change the IPv6 deployment plans of those that already have IPv4?  What will be different for them compared to the situation where we keep some dregs of IPv4 for new entrants to the market?  The fact that *they* can’t get any more addresses from the NCC?  That’s no different to the situation now.

I would dearly love to see the end of IPv4 policies, and perhaps I’d prefer this policy if it had a sliding scale that changed the initial allocation size based on what was left in the NCC’s resource pool, but that might be too arbitrary — then again /22 and /24 are also, to some extent, arbitrary.  Dropping down to the minimum currently routed size makes quite a bit of sense — these are the last bits of IPv4, here is your slice, it’s the same for all newcomers.  We are in the end-game.

Cheers,
Rob