On Mar 9, 1997, Brett L. Hawn wrote:
Why? Is there a signed contract tht says I must return unwanted/unused space to the nic?
No, but by the same token, you do not own your IP addresses, you simply have the right to use them. You never signed anything that said you _do_ have unlimited rights to them, so by your logic the NIC (or IANA) is completely within its rights to take away said IP address and re-assign them to somebody who will actually use them.
Face it, all the nic is, is a 'globally' (not totally true but good enough for our purposes) storage facility that allocates its resources on a first come, as needed basis. If I have a stockpile of typing paper that I'm willing to sell because I don't need it should I sent it back to the wharehouse or should I sell it to the guy next door who's willing to give me 10 bucks per carton?
Paper is a renewable resource; IP addresses are _definitely_ not in this category.
You are assuming that the nic/ARIN is the end all be all of IP space, and thats just not true. I could for example go to IANA and request space (no doubt they would turn me down unless I had a damn good reason) if I wanted to, one does _NOT_ have to go through the Nic/ARIN.
Granted the InterNIC is not the end all and be all of IP address allocation, but the point is that _somebody_ is almost certainly going to have something to say about the auctioning of IP addresses. Alec -- +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ |Alec Peterson - ahp@hilander.com | Erols Internet Services, INC. | |Network Engineer | Springfield, VA. | +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+