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Whats the lowest IPv6 subnet you can technically own?
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Whats the lowest IPv6 subnet you can technically own?

stefemanstefeman Member
edited September 2017 in General

/44? /32? /8? Can you hoard 1/10 of the available IPs now or do like Ford did with IPv4?

Comments

  • ARIN's minimum IPv6 delegation is a /36 allocation to ISPs and /48 for end users.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    I'm curious why you called out Ford? They own a single /8:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_address_blocks

    Oh and btw, if you're trying to hoard IPs, you're a disgusting human being.

    Thanked by 1BlaZe
  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran
    edited September 2017

    I suppose you meant the largest, or the shortest prefix.

    Well, DTAG owns a 2003::/23, which is 512 /32s. AFAIK they were able to justify that because of the IPv6 transition scheme they use, called 6rd, which needs to encode customer's IPv4 into a part of the IPv6 prefix that the customer receives.

  • The US DoD owns a /13 IPv6 block.

    Both Deutsche & France Telekom own a /19

  • raindog308 said: I'm curious why you called out Ford? They own a single /8:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_address_blocks

    Now I wonder how Ford and US Postal service use their /8
    Quick search on wiki didn't help me.

  • MikeAMikeA Member, Patron Provider

    The wikipedia page isn't correct is it?

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    ben47955 said: Now I wonder how Ford and US Postal service use their /8 Quick search on wiki didn't help me.

    In the early days of the Internet, it was easy to get a big block.

    Once you've IP'd tens of thousands of systems, you tend to not want to rip all that out and put in a 10.x

    But eventually the price of IPs will climb to a point where it makes financial sense for these big blockholders to do that. Well, that's my speculation anyway.

  • agentmishraagentmishra Member, Host Rep

    /44

  • justvmjustvm Member, Patron Provider

    According ARIN the standard allocation is /32

  • emgemg Veteran

    @raindog308 said:

    In the early days of the Internet, it was easy to get a big block.

    Once you've IP'd [give public IPv4 addresses to] tens of thousands of systems, you tend to not want to rip all that out and put in a 10.x

    But eventually the price of IPs will climb to a point where it makes financial sense for these big blockholders to do that. Well, that's my speculation anyway.

    (Separating facts from opinion: The text below is my personal opinion, rooted in a few well-known facts.)

    I speculate that the price of IPv4 addresses will go up for a little while longer, but at some point, IPv6 deployment will reach a critical mass.

    When IPv6 deployment reaches a certain level, I believe that we will see an IPv4 address market price crash. In my opinion, it is almost inevitable. I bet that the late-to-the-game "investors" (speculators) will try to unload the IPv4 address blocks in a hurry; the IPv4 address blocks that they hoarded just a little too long.

    I would be surprised if any of the /8 holders, such as Ford, are able to sell their big blocks in time to make it worth the cost and risk. The money they might make is probably a small fraction of their overall IT budgets. For them, it isn't worth it.

    It would not surprise me to learn that some hosting services' primary reason for existence is easy justification for hoarding IPv4 addresses.

    I believe that the IPv4 address market crash will happen sooner (say, within the next 3 years), rather than later. All my personal opinion, of course.

  • WSSWSS Member

    @emg said:
    I believe that the IPv4 address market crash will happen sooner (say, within the next 3 years), rather than later. All my personal opinion, of course.

    If more consumer grade devices were IPv6 ready. Roku, for one, refuses to work on a dual stack as long as there are NAT routers that do translation. There is still plenty of hardware and ideologies that absolutely refuse to move on from IPv4 that have nothing to do with Roku, or ColoCrossing for that matter.

  • Who's doing ASN registrations for ARIN?

  • mfsmfs Banned, Member
    edited October 2017

    raindog308 said: But eventually the price of IPs will climb to a point where it makes financial sense for these big blockholders to do that. Well, that's my speculation anyway.

    It's anachronistic to me to still consider IPv4s as "property" while domains are usually considered only "rented assets"* and otherwise valuable only in (parallel) trademark issues

    It would make more sense to consider domains as "property" and IPs as "rented" assets. It's strange to read that IPv4s are a property and are classified as outright assets

    Currently most users end up "renting" IPs from people who "own" them. It would make sense to transform these middle men in simple "registrars", and OTOH to transform (domain) registrars in (domain) resellers. In other words, it would make sense for "The Ford Motor Company" to own the domain "ford.com" and to obtain in license a finite amount of IPs, to be renewed periodically and reserved for no more than 10 years. This could have enhanced IPv4 re-use a little. Domains would have cost probably much more (like, at least 20x more) but you'd maybe have witnessed less domain squatting. An extinctive prescription could still be considered for domains not associated to IPs for more than 10 years or something like that.

    *(actually, I believe domain registrations are nowadays considered more like "a Grant Of License " to use a domain for a finite amount of time and subjected to conditions set forward by the registrar; so, something a little different from mere "renting")

  • @mfs said:

    >

    It's anachronistic to me to still consider IPv4s as "property" while domains are usually considered only "rented assets"* and otherwise valuable only in (parallel) trademark issues

    It would make more sense to consider domains as "property" and IPs as "rented" assets. It's strange to read that IPv4s are a property and are classified as outright assets

    Currently most users end up "renting" IPs from people who "own" them. It would make sense to transform these middle men in simple "registrars", and OTOH to transform (domain) registrars in (domain) resellers. In other words, it would make sense for "The Ford Motor Company" to own the domain "ford.com" and to obtain in license a finite amount of IPs, to be renewed periodically and reserved for no more than 10 years. This could have enhanced IPv4 re-use a little. Domains would have cost probably much more (like, at least 20x more) but you'd maybe have witnessed less domain squatting. An extinctive prescription could still be considered for domains not associated to IPs for more than 10 years or something like that.

    *(actually, I believe domain registrations are nowadays considered more like "a Grant Of License " to use a domain for a finite amount of time and subjected to conditions set forward by the registrar; so, something a little different from mere "renting")

    I respectfully disagree, it makes more sense that an IP address is considered property since it is bound to a server. To change a domain name pointing towards a server is easy, to replace the IP address is comparably complicated. Not to mention the countless IPs that are used strictly for routing purposes, consider how many companies would have to renew their addresses every few years just so the internet doesn't literally break.

    There are situations where a company will replace its domain or point it elsewhere, whereas if people still need access to the machine, they can still get to it directly through the IP address. Think of domain names as people who live on a property and IP addresses as the property's physical address. It's easy to move from property to property, but it would complicate things if you could transfer your property's address to somewhere else.

  • mfsmfs Banned, Member

    Pwner said: I respectfully disagree, it makes more sense that an IP address is considered property since it is bound to a server. To change a domain name pointing towards a server is easy, to replace the IP address is comparably complicated. Not to mention the countless IPs that are used strictly for routing purpose, consider how many companies would have to renew their addresses every few years just so the internet doesn't literally break.

    I understand your perplexities, but to me it seems you're arguing with technical difficulties to defend a "ownership" model which lead to inefficient IPv4 allocation. The vast majority of users presently "rent" IPs (in various ways) from someone who owns them, so it won't change a thing for them. Large public institutions and corps who received /8 in the '80s would be invited after max 10 years to consider if they really need /8 or maybe if a /22 is enough. Re-routing too many IPv4s too often wouldn't be nice and the internet wasn't really designed for this model, you clearly have a point here, but the if IPs and domains switch price tags this could be a non-issue. Special classes for routing IPs could be considered

    Pwner said: There are situations where a company will replace its domain or point it elsewhere, whereas if people still need access to the machine, they can still get to it directly through the IP address.

    People are "paying" to obtain an IP address right now. Universities using public IPv4s to address every printer would be "invited" to dismiss them.

    Pwner said: Think of domain names as people who live on a property and IP addresses as the property's physical address. It's easy to move from property to property, but it would complicate things if you could transfer your property's address to somewhere else.

    This is an excellent point. People "own" their address? No, they are assigned an address from their city council. They own the land matching that IP address. They regularly pay taxes to their city council to assure their existence from an administrative PoV.
    Sure it would be complicated for the postman to find their address if they constantly "drop" their address and use a different one.

    Ultimately, you're completely right and my hypothetical inane model probably wouldn't presently be feasible. But not, I believe, because the present ownership model is correct; more like, because it would be technically difficult to switch to a different model. Switching to IPv6 has been deemed more feasible than revising this model altogether; and in a hypothetical future without IPv4 (probably not in our lifetime) all these issues won't matter

    Thanked by 1Pwner
  • WilliamWilliam Member
    edited October 2017

    ben47955 said: Now I wonder how Ford and US Postal service use their /8 Quick search on wiki didn't help me.

    They might not at all, they are not obligated to do so.

    emg said: I speculate that the price of IPv4 addresses will go up for a little while longer, but at some point, IPv6 deployment will reach a critical mass.

    Sure. But this depends on Asia, which is very far behind in most parts, especially China.

    mfs said: to own the domain "ford.com" and to obtain in license a finite amount of IPs, to be renewed periodically and reserved for no more than 10 years

    You cannot force them to do so. Pre-ARIN blocks are property of the owner and cannot be revoked, they can only be returned by own will.

    There is no way to revoke this blocks or force anyone to do anything at all with them, as simple as that.

    mfs said: The vast majority of users presently "rent" IPs (in various ways) from someone who owns them

    No, the vast majority of small users get space from a LIR in their region, which is exactly the system you described (IANA -> RIR -> LIR -> User). It does not apply to legacy for obvious reasons.

    Renting is rather new in the current form, most "owners" are LIRs and the chain is the same, but some do also cross rent from others and thus add another step between LIR and user.

    mfs said: People are "paying" to obtain an IP address right now. Universities using public IPv4s to address every printer would be "invited" to dismiss them.

    Most universities are also legacy owners. They do not need to justify usage and cannot be forced to return.

    mfs said: *(actually, I believe domain registrations are nowadays considered more like "a Grant Of License " to use a domain for a finite amount of time and subjected to conditions set forward by the registrar; so, something a little different from mere "renting")

    The country owning the domain decides this, the US (and IANA/ICANN) have no say in how long, for what price or under what conditions a sovereign nations ccTLD is used, even if US sanctioned like North Korea.

    For gTLDs the story is different however, yea.

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