On Sunday, March 09, 1997 11:42 PM, Tom Glover[SMTP:tomg@boiled.egg.com] wrote: @ @ Good question! Would the bankrupt court consider the address space as a @ sellable asset? @

I believe that you will find the answer to be yes... I believe... yes, I believe... Through it was not joke but serious question; and I hope you get serious answer...

Please, pay attention to the fact - IP numbers are not selled, they cost nothing; but they are important part of the assets ISP does have... DO you think it'll be forever - the thing _cost nothing_ but _is limited_ and _is important_...? No matter if _there exist big nabobs_ or _not_... Everything is relative - there is one set of _big nabobs_ there i Russia; there is another set in Europe, and 3'th set in USA (and some _USA's nabobs_ have not any real weight in Russia, for example_). But the truths is _we would not see a lot of existing ISP in a few next years_ (in USA, in Russia, in Europe - I am not market man and don't like to predict future). And I dislike to have a lot of flame in the mail lists, a lot of wasted address space in IP numbers, and a lot of routing problems when this small ISP would be joined, merged, splitted etc... I do not know if InterNIC's people think about this, or they allow everything to flow as it's flowing itself. But the time of academic's Internet is over, and new players are appeared on the playboard... De facto European ISP buy address space, because they pay for the IP registry; and this helps to keep address space. You can blame to those who sells class-B networks; but if they would not sell them, nobody use this address space at all (nobody cause them to free this space)... It's important to go between scilla and charibda (sorry, I am not sure about spelling this names in English); I have when american's NIC began to ask money for the top level domains, but can't get this money by any acceptable ways (and a lot of people over the world send faxes, try to call them by phone etc because they have not enougph phones and peoples to do their work); I am afraid if class-B network would cost 60,000$ (it's not too great for the _big nabobs_ or for the old ISP but it's serious barrier for the small ISP in the small countries - let's imagine some ISP in the Georgia, for example, or some scientific institute in Armenia)... Cleanly it's not good place _nanog_ to discuss there, but I don't see another one while...

Companies in the U.S. should probably consult with their CPAs and attorneys on how the IRS handles assets such as IP addresses.

This is especially important if an asset is required without any payment being made. If a /8 is worth $1,000,000 and some company is arbitrarily given one of these to help their "start-up" get venture capital, then that asset is a key to obtaining the funding and is part of the capitalization of the company.

The organization "giving" the "start-up" that block, could be viewed as an "equity" partner or stockholder in the start-up. If the start-up raised $4,000,000 and added the block to their Balance Sheet then that asset would be 20% of the company. That can be a significant ownership interest in a start-up, subject to the 5% limits.

Again...I suggest that companies make sure they understand the value of their IP assets and how to account for that value.

-- Jim Fleming Unir Corporation

e-mail: JimFleming@unety.net JimFleming@unety.s0.g0 (EDNS/IPv8)

Aleksei Roudnev, Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow (+7 095) 194-19-95 (Network Operations Center Hot Line),(+7 095) 239-10-10, N 13729 (pager) (+7 095) 196-72-12 (Support), (+7 095) 194-33-28 (Fax)