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Policy
regarding allocation of IPv4 addresses is the province of the RIRs, and legacy
addresses are not believed to be subject to these policies. Though the RIRs
consult and cooperate, they are independent bodies and their policies and
procedures are not identical. International public policy principles should be
considered a form of guidance for the RIRs and other related international
organizations, particularly with respect to the need to align their policies
and procedures regarding certain issues.
The APNIC and RIPE NCC RIRs have already exhausted their IANA allocations
of IPv4 addresses in terms of being able to freely allocate blocks to
applicants. They are now carefully managing their IPv4 reserve. The other RIRs
are expected to similarly exhaust their allocations within a few years.
Because of incompatibility between IPv4 and IPv6, parallel
operation is required and there will be a need for IPv4 addresses for an
undetermined period until a critical mass of web-based services is available
via IPv6 addresses. Though migration to IPv6 is gaining speed, the proportion
of IPv6 traffic on the Internet remains very small and it is expected to be
many years before IPv4 can be taken out of service.
Approximately 40% of the IPv4 address space is legacy addresses
which were allocated in large blocks to individual companies and organizations
prior to the establishment of the RIRs. This legacy address space is
under-utilized and legacy addresses form the bulk of the unused IPv4 address
space. A growing market has developed in the transfer of IPv4 addresses between
entities and the overwhelming proportion of transferred addresses is from
legacy allocations. Some legacy allocations have been voluntarily returned to
the RIRs, though it would be unrealistic to believe this will continue to any
significant degree. The free market will almost certainly determine how unused
legacy addresses will be allocated.
An uncontrolled market in IPv4 addresses could
threaten the viability of the WHOIS databases maintained by the RIRs and could also
result in scattering small blocks of IPv4 addresses, thereby putting additional
load on the Internet routers. This could eventually undermine the stability of
the Internet. Such a situation could be mitigated by an
international public policy requiring that all IPv4 transactions be reported to
the relevant RIRs, including transactions of legacy addresses that are not
necessarily subject to the policies of the RIRs regarding transfers, and that
transactions be in blocks of no less than /24 (256 addresses).
New entrant Internet service providers will continue to require
access to IPv4 addresses for an undetermined time. The
cost of transferred IPv4 addresses is orders of magnitude higher than the cost
of new addresses from the RIRs and may be out of reach of smaller new entrant
ISPs, particularly in developing countries. A public policy should
encourage the RIRs to maintain a reserve of sufficient addresses to supply new
entrant ISPs.
Legacy
IPv4 addresses are predominantly in North America but the need for additional
IPv4 addresses is predominantly in Asia and other RIR regions. There are no
policies or procedures in place regarding inter-region transfers. An
international public policy should encourage the RIRs to develop policies and
procedures to enable inter-region transfers. Limiting such transfers to legacy
addresses, at least for an interim period until all IANA-allocated addresses
(except the reserve) are exhausted, would assure that developed countries are
not buying IANA-allocated addresses from developing countries, thereby
unbalancing allocations and opportunities away from developing countries.
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