On Mon, 14 Apr 2003, Kris Foster wrote:
There is a finite amount of IPv4 address space.
There's also a finite amount of real estate.
If you recall the spectrum auctions of years past, only the ultra-wealthy become owners of it.
I don't believe spectrum auctions are really a good comparason. In order for the PCS spectrum to be useful, the license would have to cover a very large part of geography. With address space, there's no reason that a variety of differently sized blocks couldn't be auctioned off which would greatly increase the chances of different owners. Reguardless, even if only utra-wealthy become owners, they would still have to compete against each other to resell, rent, or whatever they want to do with it to organizations that actually want to use the space. Of course, there are already many organizations that own fairly large chuncks of unused space. They would be able to freely sell it to whomever they wish. Surely you'd agree that most of the organizations that own /8's but are using only a tiny fraction of the space would sell it quickly.
The only good thing that would come of it, would be forcing everyone to transition to IPv6.
And if that's what the market demands then, great! -- Brandon Ross AIM: BrandonNR VP Operations ICQ: 2269442 Sockeye Networks