On 25 Aug 2009, at 10:54, <michael.dillon@bt.com> wrote:
The fair solution is for everyone to get the same amount of time to continue growing their IPv4 stockpile.
That kind of implies we stick with the current policies as-is.
To do that we need to know RIPE's run-rate, and the run-rates of every LIR that needs some IPv4 allocations after the IANA runout. Instead of making up arbitrary allocations sizes today, we can balance the time factor and round off to the nearest /24.
While this data would be useful, I'm not sure how it will help LIRs with their planning. How many LIRs know now (or soon) what their IPv4 needs will be once IANA runout is reached? Will they share that data? Will it be truthful? If I was an LIR, I'd be tempted to inflate my post runout needs in the hope of getting an extra chunk of the then scarce and valuable IPv space. Partly that could be justified by conservative engineering. OTOH it could be for baser motives: like getting extra space which can be traded. Even if accurate run-rate data was available, it would inevitably be a snap shot and inherently out of date. And it would undoubtedly influence LIR behaviour. Which would have an impact on run-rates. My guess is this would promote depletion of the remaining v4 space, but not necessarily in a fair way.