I love this. ARIN publicly states, "Whatchoo talkin about, Willis?" (see announcement below) So, by extrapolation, if we've collectively used 20 /8s over the past 5 years, and we have 90 left, that's over 20 years of IPv4 growth we have left. Some would ask, "What about increasing address usage?" I would ask, "What evidence do you have that usage is increasing?" Technologies like NAT and efforts to reclaim poorly assigned address space have a large negative pressure on the increase of IP utilization. As more and more "appliances" need IP addresses, people will realize more and more that the last thing they want is those "applicances" on public IP space. Does anybody have statistics for assigned-but-not-announced space? I'd be willing to bet there will be more and more dead space over the years, and in fact quite a bit of "increasing usage" is just churn. What does any of this matter? I think there is a huge financial incentive for NSPs to ignore IPv6 until the situation arrives where they are at a competitive disadvantage to NOT deploy it. I also don't think that time will ever come, as I expect new technology to trump IPv6 by the time it's actually needed (some would argue that NAT has already accomplished this). How about a protocol that eliminated the need for BGP, while simultaneously making every address portable? That, to me, would be The Answer. Not that it seems possible given what we currently know, but 20 years is a long time :) Try to think backwards 20 years, and you see how impossible it is to conceive of the next 20 years. (Yes, I realize that statement neuters the basis of my argument. But I'm not really stating the future demand for IPs as fact, just assumptions to be debated.) Does anybody honestly think companies will commit the capex needed to implement IPv6? I know this thread keeps on coming up...but I don't see any positive momentum for IPv6, and if the people of this Esteemed Forum can't agree that IPv6 is something that must happen ASAP, how will the PHBs (those who control the money) and the customers (those who control demand) ever be convinced? Hell, I can't even convince myself that IPv6 is neccessary. Is anybody out there totally sold on IPv6, enough to evangelize it to anybody willing to listen? I mean, IPv6 is no CIDR... Andy --- Andy Dills Xecunet, Inc. www.xecu.net 301-682-9972 --- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 14:48:17 -0500 (EST) From: Member Services <memsvcs@arin.net> To: arin-announce@arin.net Subject: [arin-announce] IPv4 Address Space There have been press articles posted over the past year that make statements about the remaining pool of IPv4 address space. A recent article states there is a shortage and that Internet Protocol Numbers will run out some time in the year 2005. The Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) do not themselves make predictions about when the remaining IPv4 address space will be depleted. They do, however, report on the rates of RIR allocation of IPv4 address space and on the state of the remaining pool of unicast IPv4 address space. The RIRs report statistics regarding IPv4 allocation on their respective web sites and present a "Joint Statistics" report at each of the RIR meetings and at other Internet industry meetings several times yearly. The most recent presentation on this subject can be found at the following location. http://www.arin.net/statistics/index.html This report states that the RIRs have collectively allocated 19.59 /8 equivalents between the dates of January 1999 and June 2003 (4.5 years). It also identifies that there are 91 /8 equivalents held by the IANA in reserve for future allocation by the RIRs. The RIRs will continue to report this information on a regular basis and will work closely with the IANA to ensure the efficient management of the remaining IPv4 address space. Richard Jimmerson Director of Operations American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)