On Sep 8, 2021, at 11:57 , Niels Bakker <niels=nanog@bakker.net> wrote:
* Owen DeLong via NANOG [Wed 08 Sep 2021, 20:35 CEST]:
IPv4 continues to increase in cost. Surely, there is a point where organizations start to cry uncle.
In most western countries there isn't much growth in the total number of connections. It's mostly churn between providers. IPv4 addresses aren't wasted once a customer leaves (unlike for mobile numbers there is no mandated number portability for IP addresses), they can be reused for the next customer, they don't deteriorate when kept in stock, and they can likely be sold for more, later, eventually.
(As long as you buy, not rent, that is, and LIR fees don't significantly increase.)
-- Niels.
The addresses aren’t the major cost of providing IPv4 services. CGN boxes, support calls, increasing size of routing table = buying new routers, etc. Increased cost of developers having to work around NAT and NAT becoming ever more complex with multiple layers, etc. All of these are the things driving the ever increasing cost of IPv4 services, not just the cost of the addresses. Owen