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> What did we read right here on HN recently about IP blocks changing hands for about $40 per address? IPv6 addresses are approximately 100% cheaper than that.

> What did we read right here on HN recently about IP blocks changing hands for about $40 per address? IPv6 addresses are approximately 100% cheaper than that. This is just silly. If you are an ISP then you already have an IPv4 allocation. If you don’t then you join the waiting list and/or apply for a /24. Once you have your allocation, RIR fees are the same regardless of IPv4 or IPv6 allocations. > But it doesn't stop there, you also no longer need subnet planning -- where under IPv4 it's very important whether this new subnet is 60 machines or 64 machines, in IPv6 you don't care and so nobody needs to manage that. Which translates to lower costs in your network team. Negligible when your "network team" is just the CTO doing a Google search, but significant at scale. If you believe this is in any way meaningful then I have a bridge to sell you. > Your route costs fall too. Because of exhaustion (and because years ago nobody had any idea what they were doing, not having had an Internet before) IPv4 is now badly fragmented, which means a trivial route ("All the East Coast stuff") may become six or sixteen or sixty separate address blocks, but IPv6 blocks were deliberately assigned so as to reduce fragmentation, chances are "All the East Coast stuff" is one or two blocks. You can’t buy smaller routers just because you deploy IPv6, so I have no idea what cost saving there are to be had here. > As to speed, Facebook reports IPv6 is about 10% faster for them. I fail to see how this is universally applicable to all ISPs. > They did exactly what I described, they're v6-only internally and have translation at the edge for "legacy" IPv4 clients. Having an IPv6 core is not the same thing as being IPv6-only. Speaking of IPv6-only, you have yet to name even a single ISP that is even considering going IPv6-only. Cat got your tongue?

tialaramex 5y ago
I think the main thrust of your objection is that you believe I was claiming this makes sense for any ISP when I was instead saying it makes sense for lots of companies providing services on the Internet Still, while we're here: > This is just silly. If you are an ISP then you already have an IPv4 allocation. Due to exhaustion in fact you can't get new allocations in IPv4 in most of the developed world. If you want to expand, you're going to need to buy addresses on the open market for that sort of $40 price we talked about. > ... Once you have your allocation, RIR fees are the same regardless of IPv4 or IPv6 allocations. Nope. Let's take ARIN, suppose you're a large international company, hundreds of local corporate networks. With IPv4 this is quite a struggle, maybe you can get away with a /17 for which ARIN will charge you $4000 per year. But with IPv6 this is easy, you'll qualify for their "3X-small" category with a /40 at only $250 per year, even if you choose a relatively wasteful address layout. It gets worse! Unless you already had that /17 from years ago, chances are you had to cobble the addresses together from several distinct allocations. ARIN charges $150 per block aggregated in this way, if you need a dozen blocks that's $1800 extra because of the fragmentation. In contrast IPv6 isn't fragmented, it was deliberately allocated sparsely so it's easy to give you adjacent blocks to grow. Not that they'll need to when you're just an international company with a few hundred sub-networks, IPv6 is so wide.
- ipv6_or_nat 5y ago
  Well, yeah, if you start by quoting a message explicitly making statements about ISPs and then opining on that, why act surprised that others think you are talking about ISPs? As to the RIR fee thing, yeah, you are right about the ARIN thing. It differs by RIR and region, tho. You are wrong about the allocation thing, tho. You can get new IPv4 allocations, even in ARINland, by joining the waitlist or to support a IPv6 deployment.

tialaramex 5y ago

I think the main thrust of your objection is that you believe I was claiming this makes sense for any ISP when I was instead saying it makes sense for lots of companies providing services on the Internet Still, while we're here: > This is just silly. If you are an ISP then you already have an IPv4 allocation. Due to exhaustion in fact you can't get new allocations in IPv4 in most of the developed world. If you want to expand, you're going to need to buy addresses on the open market for that sort of $40 price we talked about. > ... Once you have your allocation, RIR fees are the same regardless of IPv4 or IPv6 allocations. Nope. Let's take ARIN, suppose you're a large international company, hundreds of local corporate networks. With IPv4 this is quite a struggle, maybe you can get away with a /17 for which ARIN will charge you $4000 per year. But with IPv6 this is easy, you'll qualify for their "3X-small" category with a /40 at only $250 per year, even if you choose a relatively wasteful address layout. It gets worse! Unless you already had that /17 from years ago, chances are you had to cobble the addresses together from several distinct allocations. ARIN charges $150 per block aggregated in this way, if you need a dozen blocks that's $1800 extra because of the fragmentation. In contrast IPv6 isn't fragmented, it was deliberately allocated sparsely so it's easy to give you adjacent blocks to grow. Not that they'll need to when you're just an international company with a few hundred sub-networks, IPv6 is so wide.

ipv6_or_nat 5y ago
Well, yeah, if you start by quoting a message explicitly making statements about ISPs and then opining on that, why act surprised that others think you are talking about ISPs? As to the RIR fee thing, yeah, you are right about the ARIN thing. It differs by RIR and region, tho. You are wrong about the allocation thing, tho. You can get new IPv4 allocations, even in ARINland, by joining the waitlist or to support a IPv6 deployment.