8 ms·

I’m more surprised that a single IP address is worth $20 apparently than Amazon owning 100 million of them. What I wonder, is it a competitive advantage for Am

I’m more surprised that a single IP address is worth $20 apparently than Amazon owning 100 million of them. What I wonder, is it a competitive advantage for Amazon at this point that they have so many? Phrased differently, would it benefit Amazon if the current status quo of IPv4 vs IPv6 adoption is maintained?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dstick 6y ago
Yes, I think it would. Because despite the obvious business advantage they have, any would-be competitor would need IPs at a similar scale. That will either cost a ton more than Amazon has, or they simply won’t be available. I own 2048 IPv4’s myself and their value is ever increasing. Like digital real estate, without the fluctuation of crypto. But I would prefer it if IPv6 would take over IPv4, and fast, because it will become a problem that will stifle competitors at some point. If most IPv4’s are owned by big corporations, that’s essentially.. them owning the current internet. IPv6 is practically free. I would love to see a breakdown of IPv4 FAANG ownership!
- toast0 6y ago
  It wouldn't take too much to make a breakdown of IP announcements. Ownership is a bit harder to track down, I think. Looking at something like https://bgp.he.net/AS32934#_prefixes https://bgp.he.net/AS32934#_prefixes will tell you what IPs Facebook announces. Rinse and repeat for whoever else. Maybe a bit tricky if you need to track down subsidiary ASes. Disclosure: I worked for WhatsApp including while it was part of Facebook, and was involved in getting AS11917 setup for WhatsApp.
  - bonzini 6y ago
    Stupid question: why does WhatsApp need to be its own AS?
    - toast0 6y ago
      It's helpful for some network policy issues.
    - cranekam 6y ago
      I'm not sure what AS11917 is for now but the lion's share of WhatsApp now runs over/in Facebook's network/datacenters. WhatsApp chat connections are terminated on the FB edge like most other FB traffic and it shares FB's common CDN for media. AS11917 might be some legacy stuff or, as was mentioned, special policy stuff. But assuming things are as they were a year or two ago most of your WA traffic is via AS32934. Source: also worked at FB/WA.
      - rescbr 6y ago
        Some chat endpoints were still at SoftLayer/IBM Cloud and I saw some at AWS as of early this year. Source: helped a customer with WA Business architecture (and worked at SL/IBM in the past)
    - WhyDoesDangSuck 6y ago
      Probably because it was a standalone application before purchased for 22 Billion by Facebook in 2014.
    - mrweasel 6y ago
      I'm not 100% sure, but if WhatsApp wanted to run their own datacenters, then they'll need their own IP ranges, and BGP/AS numbers is how IPs are "routed". The AS number is used to let others know that a given IP range is reachable via your router. I'd like to give a better explanation, but I think it would be wrong. BGP is really hard for me to grasp, even if my networking colleagues claims it's not really that complicated.
      - cranekam 6y ago
        "Running a datacenter" isn't something that inherently needs its own IP range. You could run a datacenter only in private address space and NAT to the internet (though this wouldn't really be very practical) or even run in private space. My point is that having a lot of computers doesn't _necessarily_ require getting public IPs or ASNs. You need public addresses if you want to be publicly reachable. If you're small you might find an ISP — let's say ISP Inc — that will give you an internet connection and allocate some part of the address space it in turn has been allocated. There's no need for BGP or dedicated IPs here — the rest of the internet already knows how to reach the range(s) of addresses assigned to ISP Inc, and from there ISP Inc's own network takes care of sending the traffic down the pipe to you. If you need a lot more addresses, or you want to use more than one ISP (either of which could apply to WhatsApp's case), you probably need to get a dedicated assignment and an ASN. The ASN means you're an "autonomous system" — not a carved out bit of someone else's network. You go to your local registrar and convince them you need some addresses, and then you go to your ISP(s) and ask them for "transit", which means they'll connect you to their network and route to and from the rest of the internet for you. But since you're now using your own addresses it's not as simple as above, where your IPs were part of your ISP's range and everyone else just sent their traffic to your ISP for them to route to you. Your IPs are yours now, and until you tell the rest of the internet how to find you nothing will work. To make this work you have to get your ISP(s) to tell the internet "hey, y'all want to send traffic to Mr Weasel LLC? I can handle it for you". This is called "announcing" a prefix (IP range) and BGP is the mechanism through which all the routers on the internet propagate announcements detailing who is providing connectivity to who. Conceptually this stuff is quite straightforward but in practice it can be mindbending. As well as transit there are peering arrangements (where Mr Weasel can arrange with Netflix to swap traffic over a dedicated physical connection, rather than their respective ISPs) and hella complicated traffic engineering schemes linking the big content providers to the internet. For instance, Facebook has thousands of transit and peering connections with other ISPs and providers and deciding which path is optimal for any given situation requires very complicated policies and management.
  - oAlbe 6y ago
    What does AS stand for in this context? An internet search didn't prove to be very useful.
    - CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
      Autonomous System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet)
- slickrick216 6y ago
  Just out of curiosity how does one go about purchasing and maintaining ownership of IPv4’s. Do you need to do it through your own company or is it possible as an individual. I’ve heard you have to demonstrate you can use them but that was in relation to IPv6’s.
  - toast0 6y ago
    Depending on which Regional Internet Registry you belong to (based on country of residence/incorporation), the process is roughly: A) justify an AS and pay the fee B) find someone to buy IPv4 addresses and pay them (probably a deposit) C) justify IPv4 address space to the RIR and pay the fee to transfer from your seller D) pay annual dues If your RIR actually has space available, you might be able to skip step B. And you can get IPv6 addresses without finding a seller, because all the RIRs have IPv6 space. RIR processes are generally human driven, so you might get more questions if you're filing as an individual.
    - dstick 6y ago
      Until recently, every new LIR got a /22 with RIPE. That’s how I got mine. Right now, none are public any more so you indeed have to buy them. The whole RIR and IP ownership process is so antiquated it’s almost hilarious. It’s on par with BGP, with is fully trust based as well :) A fascinating field, that I’m glad not to be a part of any more!
    - slickrick216 6y ago
      Good to know thank you.
  - wmf 6y ago
    You do have to put IPv4 addresses into use within a year or so when you buy them.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  How do you own an IPv4 in perpetuity? Can they be bought in small scale, say 1-10?
  - therealx 6y ago
    Pretty sure youd have better luck purchasing a perpetual license to one from a top tier owner.
  - CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
    The smallest routable IPv4 network on the Internet is a /24, which is 256 addresses. Regional Internet Registries won't assign you smaller than a /24, but individual ISPs might. Even if you have an assignment, maintaining it requires payment of annual fees to your RIR, unless you're a lucky "legacy" address holder from before the RIRs were formed.
    - icedchai 6y ago
      I own a /24 from the early 90's, registered before ARIN and the other RIRs existed. It is considered a legacy block and I've never signed the legacy registration agreement, so no fees for me! I do have it routed to my home network over a "business broadband" connection.
      - CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
        Jealous! I pay ARIN hundreds of dollars a year in RSA fees. As a legacy address holder, how do you feel about RPKI?
        icedchai 6y ago
        I use my network mostly for experimentation and it is unlikely to be a target for hijack. If I were a commercial enterprise I would want RPKI for the future. Currently it seems mostly irrelevant in a practical sense, due to the small number of ASes actually validating.
  - PurpleFoxy 6y ago
- zokier 6y ago
  > I own 2048 IPv4’s myself and their value is ever increasing. Like digital real estate, without the fluctuation of crypto. Until the day when ipv6-only connectivity becomes practical/commonplace. At some point ipv4 market is going to crash when they are simply not needed anymore. Of course that inflection point might still be quite far away, but I wouldn't count on ipv4 stock being a retirement fund
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    This is slowly happening. On my blog, I can see IP addresses of people who subscribed for my newsletter. It used to be 100 per cent IPv4 a year ago, now it is more like 8:1.
  - dijit 6y ago
    But you still need an ipv4 address even if it’s only 10% of people who are ipv4 only.
    - oarsinsync 6y ago
      If 90% of users are on IPv6, you as a content producer are unlikely to need IPv4 at $20/IP (or rather, $5120 per /24). If 90% of content is on IPv6, you as a user are unlikely to need an IPv4 address.
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      Fewer and fewer people are able to get an IPv4 address - that's the main reason for IPv6 !
      - dijit 6y ago
        But some people (like myself) are unable to get an ipv6 right now. Some people are unable to get ipv6 from their cloud hosted servers outbound right now too. Even if they tried.
        BlueTemplar 6y ago
- JPDeckers 6y ago
  > I own 2048 IPv4’s myself and their value is ever increasing. I own several /22's, and are renting them out through a broker. So far, 1 months rent (easily) covers the yearly RIR costs, so quite a good margin, and I still own them. So when time comes, I can sell them, but before that, rent keeps coming in. Just need to make sure they are sold before the market value of an IPv4 crashes to zero.
  - CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
    What kind of entities does your broker rent them out to? Are you worried at all about tenants trashing your IPs' reputation and future market value?
    - wut42 6y ago
      This is a good question, I don't get why you are downvoted. I also own some /22 and I've been so far reluctant to rent them for the reasons you mentioned.
      - benedikt 6y ago
        What are you currently using them for? Are they just sitting dormant ?
        wut42 6y ago
        Right now yeah, mostly dormant. Some are used for an anycast http frontend and anycast irc, but that's pretty much it.
Implicated 6y ago
The more they own the more scarce they are outside of AWS.
toast0 6y ago
I've seen some VM providers charge more to get an instance with IPv4 connectivity. Amazon doesn't charge extra for that (last I looked anyway), so that's a potential advantage. IPv6 penetration is growing, but Akamai reports that even the most IPv6 networks only go to ~ 92% IPv6. So if you want to have full reach, you need IPv4, but you don't really need IPv6 (although, you may want it, some of the CGNAT systems that users are behind are pretty bad, avoiding that is nice)
- shepherdjerred 6y ago
  AWS does charge for a dedicated (static) IPv4 address, but only when your EC2 instance is down. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/elastic-ip-addresses-eip.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/elastic-... https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/elastic-ip-charges/ https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/elast...
  - nucleardog 6y ago
    For anyone not as familiar with AWS, basically: * They'll provide a free dynamic IPv4 address attached to any interface/VM for the life of that VM. * They'll provide static IPv4 addresses. These are generally free, but you'll be charged if they're not attached to a VM (i.e., sitting unused). Only one IP per instance is free. Charge is a half cent an hour, so works out to about $3.65/mo to camp on an IP address.
    - usr1106 6y ago
      Nothing is free when you get it from a profitable business. EC2 prices are pretty high compared to other offerings if you run the machine permanently. The "free" IPv4 address is certainly a part of the price. (There are other parts like good maintenance, which you don't necessarily get from cheaper competitors) Scaleway charges you 1 € / month for such address whether you use it or not. That's a 25% premium on the cheapest machine when in use. Much cheaper than AWS whether in use or not. Not sure how many customers could perfectly live without the IPv4, but AWS seems to be in the market position to (covertly) charge them, too.
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
Keep in mind contiguous IPv4 addresses are worth $20. One of the few examples of “the more of them you have for sale, the more they’re worth”
- jzwinck 6y ago
  More like "The larger contiguous chunk you have for sale, the more it is worth." Like diamonds, unlike gold.
- toast0 6y ago
  There's a u shaped curve on pricing. There's a lot of demand for /24s, because sometimes that's all you can justify. Once you get bigger than what can be easily justified, the prices go down a bit. If you need a /18, you can probably use either an /18 or two /19s or ... You can make it work, and there's not enough benefit for contiguous to pay more. Of course, if you can justify an /8, there is a premium for contiguous. Otoh, not too many /8's for sale.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
No, not really. If a new organization needs a large block of ip addresses, they just use IPv6. The biggest reason IPv4 persists is because deploying IPv6 can be very expensive for legacy users: new equipment, retraining, hiring. For a large organization, planning and executing such a deployment can take years. There are a lot of fresh new telecom providers in India who do not have that kind of baggage, so they chose to deploy IPv6 networks from the start for their cellular internet. You'll notice that if you're on a cellular network, even in the U.S., you will have an IPv6 address. If "the market" ever tries to price gouge for IPv4 addresses to the point where deploying IPv6 becomes the cheaper option, then organizations will just use IPv6 instead.
- jlokier 6y ago
  > You'll notice that if you're on a cellular network, even in the U.S., you will have an IPv6 address. Just a data point. I'm on a cellular network in the UK for both my phone and my phone network (via 4G router). My phone get an IPv6 address only, no IPv4. But my home network gets an IPv4 address only, no IPv6. I can't obtain IPv6 on the home network even though it's the same cellular service (down to the same kind of SIM and same contract) as the phone.
  - ancarda 6y ago
    >I'm on a cellular network in the UK >My phone get an IPv6 address only, no IPv4 Please tell me which network so I can immediately switch. Three unfortunately still don't use IPv6, and I'd prefer if my phone were IPv6-only than IPv4-only since everything else in my life is IPv6 capable -- all my servers, my home Internet, my email provider, etc... EDIT: So it seems some people have gotten IPv6 addresses from Three last year - e.g. https://twitter.com/Mythic_Beasts/status/1195292901191892992 https://twitter.com/Mythic_Beasts/status/1195292901191892992 - so perhaps I just need to wait for Three to enable it for everyone? Not going to wait forever though...
    - jlokier 6y ago
      I'm using Three. The phone Settings > About > Status shows an IPv6 and no IPv4. However it's not really IPv6-only. It is able to make IPv4 connections, which rather than going over the IPv6 route, are instead tunnelled to the network separately via the modem and the network applies CGNAT and assigned an ephemeral source IPv4. I've described some of the NAT behaviour here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25399780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25399780 I also I also use Three for my 4G+Wifi home router. That doesn't get an IPv4 at the moment, just an IPv6. None of my home devices can make IPv6 connections over the LAN to my internet services. They resolve ok, but then have no route. Same applies when using my phone as a Wifi hotspot. The hotspot is IPv4 only, even though the phone itself has an IPv6 uplink. Now I know it's an experimental partial rollout by Three, I wonder if I'd see the opposite if I swapped the two SIMs.
bzb6 6y ago
That’s what’s happening here in Spain. The biggest ISPs are doing nothing to migrate to IPv6 because they are sitting on a shitload of IPv4 addresses and that makes it very hard for new ISPs to compete.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dstick 6y ago

Yes, I think it would. Because despite the obvious business advantage they have, any would-be competitor would need IPs at a similar scale. That will either cost a ton more than Amazon has, or they simply won’t be available. I own 2048 IPv4’s myself and their value is ever increasing. Like digital real estate, without the fluctuation of crypto. But I would prefer it if IPv6 would take over IPv4, and fast, because it will become a problem that will stifle competitors at some point. If most IPv4’s are owned by big corporations, that’s essentially.. them owning the current internet. IPv6 is practically free. I would love to see a breakdown of IPv4 FAANG ownership!

toast0 6y ago
It wouldn't take too much to make a breakdown of IP announcements. Ownership is a bit harder to track down, I think. Looking at something like https://bgp.he.net/AS32934#_prefixes https://bgp.he.net/AS32934#_prefixes will tell you what IPs Facebook announces. Rinse and repeat for whoever else. Maybe a bit tricky if you need to track down subsidiary ASes. Disclosure: I worked for WhatsApp including while it was part of Facebook, and was involved in getting AS11917 setup for WhatsApp.
- bonzini 6y ago
  Stupid question: why does WhatsApp need to be its own AS?
  - toast0 6y ago
    It's helpful for some network policy issues.
  - cranekam 6y ago
    I'm not sure what AS11917 is for now but the lion's share of WhatsApp now runs over/in Facebook's network/datacenters. WhatsApp chat connections are terminated on the FB edge like most other FB traffic and it shares FB's common CDN for media. AS11917 might be some legacy stuff or, as was mentioned, special policy stuff. But assuming things are as they were a year or two ago most of your WA traffic is via AS32934. Source: also worked at FB/WA.
    - rescbr 6y ago
      Some chat endpoints were still at SoftLayer/IBM Cloud and I saw some at AWS as of early this year. Source: helped a customer with WA Business architecture (and worked at SL/IBM in the past)
  - WhyDoesDangSuck 6y ago
    Probably because it was a standalone application before purchased for 22 Billion by Facebook in 2014.
  - mrweasel 6y ago
    I'm not 100% sure, but if WhatsApp wanted to run their own datacenters, then they'll need their own IP ranges, and BGP/AS numbers is how IPs are "routed". The AS number is used to let others know that a given IP range is reachable via your router. I'd like to give a better explanation, but I think it would be wrong. BGP is really hard for me to grasp, even if my networking colleagues claims it's not really that complicated.
    - cranekam 6y ago
      "Running a datacenter" isn't something that inherently needs its own IP range. You could run a datacenter only in private address space and NAT to the internet (though this wouldn't really be very practical) or even run in private space. My point is that having a lot of computers doesn't _necessarily_ require getting public IPs or ASNs. You need public addresses if you want to be publicly reachable. If you're small you might find an ISP — let's say ISP Inc — that will give you an internet connection and allocate some part of the address space it in turn has been allocated. There's no need for BGP or dedicated IPs here — the rest of the internet already knows how to reach the range(s) of addresses assigned to ISP Inc, and from there ISP Inc's own network takes care of sending the traffic down the pipe to you. If you need a lot more addresses, or you want to use more than one ISP (either of which could apply to WhatsApp's case), you probably need to get a dedicated assignment and an ASN. The ASN means you're an "autonomous system" — not a carved out bit of someone else's network. You go to your local registrar and convince them you need some addresses, and then you go to your ISP(s) and ask them for "transit", which means they'll connect you to their network and route to and from the rest of the internet for you. But since you're now using your own addresses it's not as simple as above, where your IPs were part of your ISP's range and everyone else just sent their traffic to your ISP for them to route to you. Your IPs are yours now, and until you tell the rest of the internet how to find you nothing will work. To make this work you have to get your ISP(s) to tell the internet "hey, y'all want to send traffic to Mr Weasel LLC? I can handle it for you". This is called "announcing" a prefix (IP range) and BGP is the mechanism through which all the routers on the internet propagate announcements detailing who is providing connectivity to who. Conceptually this stuff is quite straightforward but in practice it can be mindbending. As well as transit there are peering arrangements (where Mr Weasel can arrange with Netflix to swap traffic over a dedicated physical connection, rather than their respective ISPs) and hella complicated traffic engineering schemes linking the big content providers to the internet. For instance, Facebook has thousands of transit and peering connections with other ISPs and providers and deciding which path is optimal for any given situation requires very complicated policies and management.
- oAlbe 6y ago
  What does AS stand for in this context? An internet search didn't prove to be very useful.
  - CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
    Autonomous System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet)
slickrick216 6y ago
Just out of curiosity how does one go about purchasing and maintaining ownership of IPv4’s. Do you need to do it through your own company or is it possible as an individual. I’ve heard you have to demonstrate you can use them but that was in relation to IPv6’s.
- toast0 6y ago
  Depending on which Regional Internet Registry you belong to (based on country of residence/incorporation), the process is roughly: A) justify an AS and pay the fee B) find someone to buy IPv4 addresses and pay them (probably a deposit) C) justify IPv4 address space to the RIR and pay the fee to transfer from your seller D) pay annual dues If your RIR actually has space available, you might be able to skip step B. And you can get IPv6 addresses without finding a seller, because all the RIRs have IPv6 space. RIR processes are generally human driven, so you might get more questions if you're filing as an individual.
  - dstick 6y ago
    Until recently, every new LIR got a /22 with RIPE. That’s how I got mine. Right now, none are public any more so you indeed have to buy them. The whole RIR and IP ownership process is so antiquated it’s almost hilarious. It’s on par with BGP, with is fully trust based as well :) A fascinating field, that I’m glad not to be a part of any more!
  - slickrick216 6y ago
    Good to know thank you.
- wmf 6y ago
  You do have to put IPv4 addresses into use within a year or so when you buy them.
spoonjim 6y ago
How do you own an IPv4 in perpetuity? Can they be bought in small scale, say 1-10?
- therealx 6y ago
  Pretty sure youd have better luck purchasing a perpetual license to one from a top tier owner.
- CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
  The smallest routable IPv4 network on the Internet is a /24, which is 256 addresses. Regional Internet Registries won't assign you smaller than a /24, but individual ISPs might. Even if you have an assignment, maintaining it requires payment of annual fees to your RIR, unless you're a lucky "legacy" address holder from before the RIRs were formed.
  - icedchai 6y ago
    I own a /24 from the early 90's, registered before ARIN and the other RIRs existed. It is considered a legacy block and I've never signed the legacy registration agreement, so no fees for me! I do have it routed to my home network over a "business broadband" connection.
    - CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
      Jealous! I pay ARIN hundreds of dollars a year in RSA fees. As a legacy address holder, how do you feel about RPKI?
      - icedchai 6y ago
        I use my network mostly for experimentation and it is unlikely to be a target for hijack. If I were a commercial enterprise I would want RPKI for the future. Currently it seems mostly irrelevant in a practical sense, due to the small number of ASes actually validating.
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
zokier 6y ago
> I own 2048 IPv4’s myself and their value is ever increasing. Like digital real estate, without the fluctuation of crypto. Until the day when ipv6-only connectivity becomes practical/commonplace. At some point ipv4 market is going to crash when they are simply not needed anymore. Of course that inflection point might still be quite far away, but I wouldn't count on ipv4 stock being a retirement fund
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  This is slowly happening. On my blog, I can see IP addresses of people who subscribed for my newsletter. It used to be 100 per cent IPv4 a year ago, now it is more like 8:1.
- dijit 6y ago
  But you still need an ipv4 address even if it’s only 10% of people who are ipv4 only.
  - oarsinsync 6y ago
    If 90% of users are on IPv6, you as a content producer are unlikely to need IPv4 at $20/IP (or rather, $5120 per /24). If 90% of content is on IPv6, you as a user are unlikely to need an IPv4 address.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    Fewer and fewer people are able to get an IPv4 address - that's the main reason for IPv6 !
    - dijit 6y ago
      But some people (like myself) are unable to get an ipv6 right now. Some people are unable to get ipv6 from their cloud hosted servers outbound right now too. Even if they tried.
      - BlueTemplar 6y ago
JPDeckers 6y ago
> I own 2048 IPv4’s myself and their value is ever increasing. I own several /22's, and are renting them out through a broker. So far, 1 months rent (easily) covers the yearly RIR costs, so quite a good margin, and I still own them. So when time comes, I can sell them, but before that, rent keeps coming in. Just need to make sure they are sold before the market value of an IPv4 crashes to zero.
- CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
  What kind of entities does your broker rent them out to? Are you worried at all about tenants trashing your IPs' reputation and future market value?
  - wut42 6y ago
    This is a good question, I don't get why you are downvoted. I also own some /22 and I've been so far reluctant to rent them for the reasons you mentioned.
    - benedikt 6y ago
      What are you currently using them for? Are they just sitting dormant ?
      - wut42 6y ago
        Right now yeah, mostly dormant. Some are used for an anycast http frontend and anycast irc, but that's pretty much it.

Implicated 6y ago

The more they own the more scarce they are outside of AWS.

toast0 6y ago

I've seen some VM providers charge more to get an instance with IPv4 connectivity. Amazon doesn't charge extra for that (last I looked anyway), so that's a potential advantage. IPv6 penetration is growing, but Akamai reports that even the most IPv6 networks only go to ~ 92% IPv6. So if you want to have full reach, you need IPv4, but you don't really need IPv6 (although, you may want it, some of the CGNAT systems that users are behind are pretty bad, avoiding that is nice)

shepherdjerred 6y ago
AWS does charge for a dedicated (static) IPv4 address, but only when your EC2 instance is down. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/elastic-ip-addresses-eip.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/elastic-... https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/elastic-ip-charges/ https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/elast...
- nucleardog 6y ago
  For anyone not as familiar with AWS, basically: * They'll provide a free dynamic IPv4 address attached to any interface/VM for the life of that VM. * They'll provide static IPv4 addresses. These are generally free, but you'll be charged if they're not attached to a VM (i.e., sitting unused). Only one IP per instance is free. Charge is a half cent an hour, so works out to about $3.65/mo to camp on an IP address.
  - usr1106 6y ago
    Nothing is free when you get it from a profitable business. EC2 prices are pretty high compared to other offerings if you run the machine permanently. The "free" IPv4 address is certainly a part of the price. (There are other parts like good maintenance, which you don't necessarily get from cheaper competitors) Scaleway charges you 1 € / month for such address whether you use it or not. That's a 25% premium on the cheapest machine when in use. Much cheaper than AWS whether in use or not. Not sure how many customers could perfectly live without the IPv4, but AWS seems to be in the market position to (covertly) charge them, too.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

Keep in mind contiguous IPv4 addresses are worth $20. One of the few examples of “the more of them you have for sale, the more they’re worth”

jzwinck 6y ago
More like "The larger contiguous chunk you have for sale, the more it is worth." Like diamonds, unlike gold.
toast0 6y ago
There's a u shaped curve on pricing. There's a lot of demand for /24s, because sometimes that's all you can justify. Once you get bigger than what can be easily justified, the prices go down a bit. If you need a /18, you can probably use either an /18 or two /19s or ... You can make it work, and there's not enough benefit for contiguous to pay more. Of course, if you can justify an /8, there is a premium for contiguous. Otoh, not too many /8's for sale.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

jacobwilliamroy 6y ago

No, not really. If a new organization needs a large block of ip addresses, they just use IPv6. The biggest reason IPv4 persists is because deploying IPv6 can be very expensive for legacy users: new equipment, retraining, hiring. For a large organization, planning and executing such a deployment can take years. There are a lot of fresh new telecom providers in India who do not have that kind of baggage, so they chose to deploy IPv6 networks from the start for their cellular internet. You'll notice that if you're on a cellular network, even in the U.S., you will have an IPv6 address. If "the market" ever tries to price gouge for IPv4 addresses to the point where deploying IPv6 becomes the cheaper option, then organizations will just use IPv6 instead.

jlokier 6y ago
> You'll notice that if you're on a cellular network, even in the U.S., you will have an IPv6 address. Just a data point. I'm on a cellular network in the UK for both my phone and my phone network (via 4G router). My phone get an IPv6 address only, no IPv4. But my home network gets an IPv4 address only, no IPv6. I can't obtain IPv6 on the home network even though it's the same cellular service (down to the same kind of SIM and same contract) as the phone.
- ancarda 6y ago
  >I'm on a cellular network in the UK >My phone get an IPv6 address only, no IPv4 Please tell me which network so I can immediately switch. Three unfortunately still don't use IPv6, and I'd prefer if my phone were IPv6-only than IPv4-only since everything else in my life is IPv6 capable -- all my servers, my home Internet, my email provider, etc... EDIT: So it seems some people have gotten IPv6 addresses from Three last year - e.g. https://twitter.com/Mythic_Beasts/status/1195292901191892992 https://twitter.com/Mythic_Beasts/status/1195292901191892992 - so perhaps I just need to wait for Three to enable it for everyone? Not going to wait forever though...
  - jlokier 6y ago
    I'm using Three. The phone Settings > About > Status shows an IPv6 and no IPv4. However it's not really IPv6-only. It is able to make IPv4 connections, which rather than going over the IPv6 route, are instead tunnelled to the network separately via the modem and the network applies CGNAT and assigned an ephemeral source IPv4. I've described some of the NAT behaviour here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25399780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25399780 I also I also use Three for my 4G+Wifi home router. That doesn't get an IPv4 at the moment, just an IPv6. None of my home devices can make IPv6 connections over the LAN to my internet services. They resolve ok, but then have no route. Same applies when using my phone as a Wifi hotspot. The hotspot is IPv4 only, even though the phone itself has an IPv6 uplink. Now I know it's an experimental partial rollout by Three, I wonder if I'd see the opposite if I swapped the two SIMs.

bzb6 6y ago

That’s what’s happening here in Spain. The biggest ISPs are doing nothing to migrate to IPv6 because they are sitting on a shitload of IPv4 addresses and that makes it very hard for new ISPs to compete.