Opinion: Calls for government and industry leadership to avert the coming crisis leave me unimpressed.We first started hearing about the coming depletion of IPv4
addresses back in the '90s, and many scoffed at the notion. Sure
enough, the adoption of NAT ended the crisis, at least for the short
term back then. But here we are in the late '00s and we're back in
crisis. Current research indicates that the last block of available
IPv4 addresses in the pool will be allocated sometime in 2011.
It's not a pretty picture. Now a long and drawn-out study on the subject from the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) asks many of the same questions and makes a predictable selection of suggestions, none of which will change the basic facts.
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The report seems optimistic, as I once was, about the potential for
re-allocating existing, but under-utilized address space. How much
there really is may be debatable, but the real problem with the scheme
is that recovering meaningful amounts of the space is politically
inconceivable, It would require confiscating the space from its current
owners and forcing them to reorganize their networks. Ain't going to
happen.
And this is the irony of the proposal: It assumes a burden on the
Internet community not too much greater than that for adopting IPv6,
which makes the transfer moot anyway.
My last look at this problem
left me pessimistic that much could be done until people were forced
into doing it because of simple economic imperative. One day IPv4
addresses will be scarce enough that a market in them will have to
develop, and a market will be the only efficient way to allocate them.
If they get expensive enough, that will provide the impetus to adopt
IPv6.
But until IPv6 is truly standard and the normal way people connect
to other Internet destinations, things will get worse. The new layers
of NAT-ing that will be necessary in order for IPv4 systems to
communicate with IPv6 systems will break facilities that we take for
granted now. Peer-to-peer operations, as a general matter, will not
work under such circumstances. P2P networks will have to develop
segregated between v4 and v6 versions. Which will people choose?
The OECD report recommends that governments blaze the trail by
migrating to IPv6 in order to set an example and establish experience,
but this would have the perverse effect of lowering the quality of
service for many to access those government services. Guess which
option politicians will choose when given the choice between
sacrificing for the long-term good and providing services in the here
and now?
IPv6 will happen, but it won't be from governments leading the way.
Very little in the advance of practical technology happens that way.
IPv6 will come for real when people have no choice but to adopt it.
Security Center Editor Larry Seltzer has worked in and written about the computer industry since 1983.
For insights on security coverage around the Web, take a look at eWEEK.com Security Center Editor Larry Seltzer's blog Cheap Hack
| | Reader Comments: OECD Calls For Action On IP Address Depletion | | >>> Post your comment now!
| | I forgot to mentionOne more advantage to the tax idea, as opposed to the free market, is that the committee maintains control, rather than IP addresses being bought and... Posted At: 05-23-08 By: Anonymous | | | | | | IP4SaleMy impression is that you can't generally do that now, but it could be allowed. Splitting up blocks could get technically complicates though, and... Posted At: 05-21-08 By: Larry Seltzer | | | | | | market?Can they sell their ip Blocks? Can they sell individual addresses within blocks? (I am not an expert here.) If they can, is it for chump change? ... Posted At: 05-21-08 By: mikelinpa | | | | | | why not the market?Why not just let the market set a price? The more demand there is, the higher the price will be, the more of an incentive there will be for address... Posted At: 05-21-08 By: Larry Seltzer | | | | | | a (dirty) idea that might work...Larry,
Here is a dirty idea that might work. Right now, the owners of unused addresses have no reason to give up any addresses they are hoarding... Posted At: 05-21-08 By: mikelinpa | | | | | | A user comment on this articleHi, I'm Larry Seltzer. How bad would things have to be before you moved your systems onto an IPv6 network? Posted At: 05-19-08 By: Larry Seltzer | | | | | | >>> Post your comment now! | | | | | |
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