Jeffrey, On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 03:54 -0700, Jeffrey A. Williams wrote:
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).
Sorry I don't except you premise that reclaiming unused IPv4 space is very expensive.
The current work for allocating IPv4 space is: * Verify requester needs space * Search the available list for space To reclaim space, one must do something like: * Find space one thinks might be available * Figure out the contact for the space * Request the space from said contact * Handle cases where contact is unavailable or uncooperative * "Decontaminate" space for a while (optional but recommended) * Put space on the available list Someone has to do all of these tasks, and the timelines can be quite long. I am *not* saying it is impossible, only that it is a lot more work than what we have today. And that work is what will make it expensive.
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(*).
I agree very generally with your last sentence here. Not your first, however. Any "Market" where IP address space is auctioned off like a comodity will early on sore in price, than maybe later graduate down or flatten out. But this depends if the "Market" is regulated or not, and if so, how it is regulated, whom is the regulator, and how diligent that or those regulators are to adhering to the yet to be determined regulations by which that "Market" operates under.
I do not believe a market will actually solve the shortage problem. I do believe there already is a market, and it is better to record who is responsible for addresses rather than make an even bigger mess than the current system. -- shane