7 ms·

IPv4 Address Market Takes Off

72 points by oxplot 12y ago

bluedevil2k 12y ago
This is actually the opposite of what I'm seeing in the American IPv4 market. I run a broker company (ipv4hub.com) with access to millions of IP addresses and can't sell any large blocks at all (large block being a /18 which is about 16,000 addresses). EDIT: Fixed the number of addresses in a /18
- mianosm 12y ago
  You mean a /14 - you went two bits in the wrong direction.
  - teraflop 12y ago
    No, a /14 is 2^18 = 262144 addresses.
- JoachimSchipper 12y ago
  Interesting. Of course, the US, as the inventor, has quite a lot of IP space; perhaps it's just that?
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Why would they be limited to selling within the US?
- davidu 12y ago
  We just bought a /16. Shouldn't be any issues selling your /18. Perhaps a marketing or pricing issue?
im2w1l 12y ago
I have a specific IP address I want to purchase. Is this possible?
- bluedevil2k 12y ago
  Likely not. If addresses are $10 each and you want one, why would they spend the time and expense to transfer just one?
  - organsnyder 12y ago
    Not to mention that it would be impossible to route it. (last I checked—years ago—the smallest advertisement anyone would accept was a /24, and even that seemed iffy)
- matthewarkin 12y ago
  You couldn't just get a single IP address, you'd have to buy a routable block that contains that IP address, which while I believe technically is a /28, in practice is a /24 (256 addresses)
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Can you generally advertise a /24 now? I thought the filters were rougher than that.
    - phil21 12y ago
      /24's are generally considered globally routable these days, and have been for quite some time. I suppose there are still some providers out there who filter them, but we'd both be showing our age if we speculated on those names :)
    - icedchai 12y ago
      In general, /24's have been routable since the 80's. There have been periods of time where various providers had filters (in certain ranges) to prevent routing table bloat.
  - im2w1l 12y ago
    And how much is a /24 then? $10 * 256 ?
smtucker 12y ago
Why would one want IPv4 address space so badly? Is it so you can communicate with servers or clients that don't facilitate any form of IPv6?
- tptacek 12y ago
  Yes, with "servers or clients that don't facilitate any form of IPv6" being a pretty good description of "the internet at large".
- sandstrom 12y ago
  For someone providing content (websites, applications, internet-based software, etc) there is a need to support both IPv4 and IPv6 clients for a while. For most consumers IPv6 will already work on many sites, and I expect that to increase considerably over the next 1-2 years.
- dennisgorelik 12y ago
  If you want to query some services (such as Google Search or Google Maps API), you may encounter throttling issues. Having multiple IPv4 addresses helps to alleviate that problem. IPv4 address also has reputation attached to it. That reputation is much move valuable that reputation on IPv6 address, because cost of IPv6 is pretty much zero, but IPv4 costs $10+ per address.
tjgq 12y ago
So in what way exactly does the Internet as a whole benefit from allowing IPv4 addresses to be traded in a free market? This is a honest question. I would like to know how we avoid ending up in a world where a few large companies control all the available IPv4 addresses (which they don't really need) so they can rent them to the rest of us at exhorbitant prices. IPv6 won't render the problem moot - it's likely that IPv4 addresses will remain a necessity for globally reachable services for years to come, regardless of IPv6 adoption.
- EthanHeilman 12y ago
  I wrote a blog entry about some of these issues. http://ethanheilman.tumblr.com/post/104839763080/are-ip-address-allocations-property http://ethanheilman.tumblr.com/post/104839763080/are-ip-addr... IANA specifically states that a free-market of IP addresses would be harmful, instead they argue that IP allocation should be based on need and not treated as property. >ISPs are required to utilize address space in an efficient manner. To this end, ISPs should have documented justification available for each assignment. The regional registry may, at any time, ask for this information. If the information is not available, future allocations may be impacted. In extreme cases, existing loans may be impacted. RFC 2050 Big companies have fought them on this and won. >The court held that Nortel had an exclusive right to use the legacy numbers. The court also explicitly sanctioned Nortel’s exclusive right to transfer its exclusive right to use the numbers. In recognizing Nortel’s exclusive right to use legacy IPv4 numbers, the court implicitly found that Nortel had the exclusive right to possess the numbers themselves. Consequently, Nortel could exclude others from possession and use of the same legacy IPv4 numbers. In other words, the court found Nortel possessed the customary “bundle of rights” commonly associated with the ownership of tangible or intangible property. - Property Rights in IPv4 Numbers: Recognizing a New Form of Intellectual Property
- wmf 12y ago
  So in what way exactly does the Internet as a whole benefit from allowing IPv4 addresses to be traded in a free market? Compared to a world where you can't get IPs at any price? Seems pretty obvious: you can get IPs. I would like to know how we avoid ending up in a world where a few large companies control all the available IPv4 addresses (which they don't really need) so they can rent them to the rest of us at exorbitant prices. It seems like the cloud is already going there with only a few large providers. All I can suggest is to buy your IPs now before Amazon does.
JoshGlazebrook 12y ago
Just curious, how many ip addresses does Amazon have for their cloud services? What would happen if they ran out and were unable to obtain more in a timely manner?
- ertemplin 12y ago
  Back in November 2014, there were at least 10,130,200 IP addresses in the EC2 range. So there are potentially way more than that today due to growth of EC2 and IP addresses required for other AWS services. Source: http://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-ip-ranges-json/ http://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-ip-ranges-json/
JoshGlazebrook 12y ago
Just curious, how many ip addresses does Amazon have for their cloud services? What would happen if they ran out and were unable to obtain more in a timely manner?
spullara 12y ago
The problem is that they designed IPv6 not to be backwards compatible with IPv4 in any meaningful way. Unless you forbid IPv4 traffic on the internet everyone is going to have to build all software for both for the foreseeable future. If everything works with both, why should you build against the new spec at all?
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  It is backwards-compatible with IPv4. You can route IPv4 over IPv6, and tunnel IPv6 over IPv4. The problem is that IPv4 is not forwards-compatible.
- tjgq 12y ago
  Given that worldwide Internet adoption is still growing strong, it is conceivable that sooner or later a significant number of endpoints will only have IPv6 connectivity, or that their IPv4 connectivity will be limited to a private address behind a carrier-grade NAT. Another point to consider is that there are things you can do with IPv6 connectivity that are very difficult/costly, or outright impossible, in NATted IPv4 land. Personally, I'm waiting for the next generation of peer-to-peer protocols that make use of end-to-end IPv6 connectivity instead of hole-punching and proxying through third-parties. (Case study: ever thought how ridiculous it is that in 2015 it's still non-trivial to send a large file to someone over the Internet without using some sort of storage service?) It's plausible that one of those new applications could end up being the "killer app" for IPv6.
jpatokal 12y ago
The list of /8 block owners makes interesting reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_address_blocks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_addre... The US Army in various guises controls vast swathes of address space, but there are also lots of corporations with a 256th of IPv4 all to themselves: Halliburton, GE, Prudential, Ford, etc. MIT also appears to be the last university still hanging onto their own block.

72 points by oxplot 12y ago

This is actually the opposite of what I'm seeing in the American IPv4 market. I run a broker company (ipv4hub.com) with access to millions of IP addresses and can't sell any large blocks at all (large block being a /18 which is about 16,000 addresses). EDIT: Fixed the number of addresses in a /18

mianosm 12y ago
You mean a /14 - you went two bits in the wrong direction.
- teraflop 12y ago
  No, a /14 is 2^18 = 262144 addresses.
JoachimSchipper 12y ago
Interesting. Of course, the US, as the inventor, has quite a lot of IP space; perhaps it's just that?
- tptacek 12y ago
  Why would they be limited to selling within the US?
davidu 12y ago
We just bought a /16. Shouldn't be any issues selling your /18. Perhaps a marketing or pricing issue?

im2w1l 12y ago

I have a specific IP address I want to purchase. Is this possible?

bluedevil2k 12y ago
Likely not. If addresses are $10 each and you want one, why would they spend the time and expense to transfer just one?
- organsnyder 12y ago
  Not to mention that it would be impossible to route it. (last I checked—years ago—the smallest advertisement anyone would accept was a /24, and even that seemed iffy)
matthewarkin 12y ago
You couldn't just get a single IP address, you'd have to buy a routable block that contains that IP address, which while I believe technically is a /28, in practice is a /24 (256 addresses)
- tptacek 12y ago
  Can you generally advertise a /24 now? I thought the filters were rougher than that.
  - phil21 12y ago
    /24's are generally considered globally routable these days, and have been for quite some time. I suppose there are still some providers out there who filter them, but we'd both be showing our age if we speculated on those names :)
  - icedchai 12y ago
    In general, /24's have been routable since the 80's. There have been periods of time where various providers had filters (in certain ranges) to prevent routing table bloat.
- im2w1l 12y ago
  And how much is a /24 then? $10 * 256 ?

smtucker 12y ago

Why would one want IPv4 address space so badly? Is it so you can communicate with servers or clients that don't facilitate any form of IPv6?

tptacek 12y ago
Yes, with "servers or clients that don't facilitate any form of IPv6" being a pretty good description of "the internet at large".
sandstrom 12y ago
For someone providing content (websites, applications, internet-based software, etc) there is a need to support both IPv4 and IPv6 clients for a while. For most consumers IPv6 will already work on many sites, and I expect that to increase considerably over the next 1-2 years.
dennisgorelik 12y ago
If you want to query some services (such as Google Search or Google Maps API), you may encounter throttling issues. Having multiple IPv4 addresses helps to alleviate that problem. IPv4 address also has reputation attached to it. That reputation is much move valuable that reputation on IPv6 address, because cost of IPv6 is pretty much zero, but IPv4 costs $10+ per address.

tjgq 12y ago

So in what way exactly does the Internet as a whole benefit from allowing IPv4 addresses to be traded in a free market? This is a honest question. I would like to know how we avoid ending up in a world where a few large companies control all the available IPv4 addresses (which they don't really need) so they can rent them to the rest of us at exhorbitant prices. IPv6 won't render the problem moot - it's likely that IPv4 addresses will remain a necessity for globally reachable services for years to come, regardless of IPv6 adoption.

EthanHeilman 12y ago
I wrote a blog entry about some of these issues. http://ethanheilman.tumblr.com/post/104839763080/are-ip-address-allocations-property http://ethanheilman.tumblr.com/post/104839763080/are-ip-addr... IANA specifically states that a free-market of IP addresses would be harmful, instead they argue that IP allocation should be based on need and not treated as property. >ISPs are required to utilize address space in an efficient manner. To this end, ISPs should have documented justification available for each assignment. The regional registry may, at any time, ask for this information. If the information is not available, future allocations may be impacted. In extreme cases, existing loans may be impacted. RFC 2050 Big companies have fought them on this and won. >The court held that Nortel had an exclusive right to use the legacy numbers. The court also explicitly sanctioned Nortel’s exclusive right to transfer its exclusive right to use the numbers. In recognizing Nortel’s exclusive right to use legacy IPv4 numbers, the court implicitly found that Nortel had the exclusive right to possess the numbers themselves. Consequently, Nortel could exclude others from possession and use of the same legacy IPv4 numbers. In other words, the court found Nortel possessed the customary “bundle of rights” commonly associated with the ownership of tangible or intangible property. - Property Rights in IPv4 Numbers: Recognizing a New Form of Intellectual Property
wmf 12y ago
So in what way exactly does the Internet as a whole benefit from allowing IPv4 addresses to be traded in a free market? Compared to a world where you can't get IPs at any price? Seems pretty obvious: you can get IPs. I would like to know how we avoid ending up in a world where a few large companies control all the available IPv4 addresses (which they don't really need) so they can rent them to the rest of us at exorbitant prices. It seems like the cloud is already going there with only a few large providers. All I can suggest is to buy your IPs now before Amazon does.

JoshGlazebrook 12y ago

Just curious, how many ip addresses does Amazon have for their cloud services? What would happen if they ran out and were unable to obtain more in a timely manner?

ertemplin 12y ago
Back in November 2014, there were at least 10,130,200 IP addresses in the EC2 range. So there are potentially way more than that today due to growth of EC2 and IP addresses required for other AWS services. Source: http://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-ip-ranges-json/ http://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-ip-ranges-json/

JoshGlazebrook 12y ago

Just curious, how many ip addresses does Amazon have for their cloud services? What would happen if they ran out and were unable to obtain more in a timely manner?

spullara 12y ago

The problem is that they designed IPv6 not to be backwards compatible with IPv4 in any meaningful way. Unless you forbid IPv4 traffic on the internet everyone is going to have to build all software for both for the foreseeable future. If everything works with both, why should you build against the new spec at all?

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
It is backwards-compatible with IPv4. You can route IPv4 over IPv6, and tunnel IPv6 over IPv4. The problem is that IPv4 is not forwards-compatible.
tjgq 12y ago
Given that worldwide Internet adoption is still growing strong, it is conceivable that sooner or later a significant number of endpoints will only have IPv6 connectivity, or that their IPv4 connectivity will be limited to a private address behind a carrier-grade NAT. Another point to consider is that there are things you can do with IPv6 connectivity that are very difficult/costly, or outright impossible, in NATted IPv4 land. Personally, I'm waiting for the next generation of peer-to-peer protocols that make use of end-to-end IPv6 connectivity instead of hole-punching and proxying through third-parties. (Case study: ever thought how ridiculous it is that in 2015 it's still non-trivial to send a large file to someone over the Internet without using some sort of storage service?) It's plausible that one of those new applications could end up being the "killer app" for IPv6.

jpatokal 12y ago

The list of /8 block owners makes interesting reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_address_blocks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_addre... The US Army in various guises controls vast swathes of address space, but there are also lots of corporations with a 256th of IPv4 all to themselves: Halliburton, GE, Prudential, Ford, etc. MIT also appears to be the last university still hanging onto their own block.