There are lots of stories like this. Many of them are worse; at least you can imagine that the UK is holding these addresses in reserve. There are companies with giant allocations that are holding them so that they can give every desktop and every printer in their enterprise a routable address; others are doing the same thing, but also operating flat, unrouted networks.
More evidence for the core problem: fiat allocation doesn't work. If there was a functioning, liquid, accessible market for advertisable IP prefixes, you wouldn't have to convince anyone that a /8 was worth $1bn; it just would be.
Sort of, and sort of not right? Fiat allocation of a fixed resource, sure, but ISO does fiat allocation of OID space and it works because folks are free to grow as much as they want below it. As I recall one of the original 'next gen' IP proposals was like a huge address translation cloud, IPs were encapsulated in yet another layer which provided 'context' for the IP address inside. Basically every entity got their own 32 bit address space and ingress/egress to the Internet resulted in encapsulation and some additional router magic. One of the arguments against was the huge additional bandwidth cost. Of course we didn't realize at the time that few protocol changes could waste as much bandwidth as SPAM does.
The other challenge is that a functioning liquid market for IP addresses would most likely lead to speculation in IP address blocks. Worse is buying an address block from someone in Germany so that packets have to go to Germany first (top level static routing) to the router where they are re-allocated and then to their 'real' destination router. All very inefficient.
I, like other folks at Sun, was a big fan of a more modest 64 bit address proposal for V6, but alas it was not to be. That the conversion has taken as long as it has (and still isn't "here" nearly enough for a lot of users) really illustrates the dangers of the argument to 'permanently' fix things[1]. But innumeracy aside, the confounding issue is that IP addresses are 'structural' like telephone numbers and managing mobility of structural identifiers is always challenging (the cellular market deals with this all the time) so creating a truly liquid marketplace for these identifiers would ideally include fixing the structural issues which would allow the constraints to be fixed and thus eliminate the market.
Bottom line, it would have been great if folks had thought of that first, but they didn't and while future protocol developers can (and should) benefit from that experience, we're stuck with V4 address blocks that are stuck in various regions of the world.
[1] The most persuasive argument against 64 bit addresses was that this would only push the problem down the road, whereas 128 bit addresses fixed things once and for all.
>More evidence for the core problem: fiat allocation doesn't work. If there was a functioning, liquid, accessible market for advertisable IP prefixes, you wouldn't have to convince anyone that a /8 was worth $1bn; it just would be.
you are missing a big point. This isn't like real-estate. This is plumbing.
Go do a search on "routing table growth"
This is actually a much larger problem than IPv4 runout. I mean, it's a problem that is further out, but it is going to hit well within my expected lifetime, and it's going to be a dramatically more difficult problem to solve.
The thing is, every time you break up a larger block into a smaller block, every router on the internet needs an entry in their routing tables[1] Usually, in content-addressable memory; Expensive stuff.
The thing is, the size of the global routing table? it's growing faster than moore's law.[2] I mean, it's not a huge deal now; for the price of a new compact car, you can get a router that has enough content-addressable memory to handle full tables and two 10g uplinks with 48 1g downlinks. reasonable cost of entry, if you ask me, and if you use dram (good luck with line rate 10G. don't think about faster line-rate.) well, then the cost is trivial. The routing table is under 500,000 entries in IPv4, so it's a trivial amount of dram.
The problem is that if this continues? (and all indications are that it's going to /massively accelerate/ if IPv6 catches on. At a minimum, you're gonna see the same number of ipv6 routes as ipv4 routes... and because IPv6 addresses are larger, ipv6 routes are larger) those routers are going to get more and more expensive.
So yeah, really? we need a way of charging, not for each IP, but for each announced route. Of course, that comes down hard on the little guys, whereas a per-IP charge is much more progressive. (a /8 takes up as many routing table entries as a /24.)
Getting by with a reduced number of IPs would be way easier for me than getting by without announcing my own block. Without BGP announcing my own block, my ISP has my balls in a vice. If they go down? I go down. More importantly, I need to change IPs when I switch to a new ISP.
I know what this is like, because I started out on my ISPs IP addresses, like almost everyone does. My provider found out that it's hard for me to switch off those IPs, so now I'm paying them, in total, for all the services they provide me, about twice market rate.
(It's actually really interesting, watching the dynamics of this problem play out on PPML or the like. Small players, like me, want to keep it easy to announce smaller blocks. We are fucked if you can only announce large blocks. Large players want tight restrictions on what size of a block you can announce, because they have the address space and they would rather not pay for more super-expensive CAM every time a Luke Crawford gets it in his head to start an ISP.)
[1] This is not strictly true. "every router that matters" would be closer to the truth. If you don't have full tables from multiple upstreams, well, you will be effected by rather more partial outages than if you do.
I'm not sure about the definition of 'unused', just because a network is not visible from the Internet and has no publicly registered ASNs doesn't mean its numbers are not in private use (which AFAIK, was always a legitimate use-case for getting an allocation, and in many ways preferable to reusing RFC1918 space).
Added to that, even if it was seeing only minuscule internal use, the UK government's IT project reputation suggests the renumbering would cost at least as much as the block would sell for, assuming the project would even complete prior to the entire planet properly migrating to v6 and the block losing its value.
If there are no networks defined, as far as RIPE is concerned, it's un-used.
We just got audited for RIPE for exactly this reason, and they made us specify details for all of the networks we use on our allocation to be allowed to keep our address space.
There are a number of ways the IP addresses can not appear to the outside user and still be used as several have mentioned, and of course they can be for some project that isn't yet 'done' (the Coast Guard had a huge block like that as I recall) but the more interesting bit is to track the cost of getting an /24 network its inching up. At the time where the easy stuff has been reclaimed it will shoot up.
We need to quit looking back at the v4 space like this, bite the bullet and deploy v6. It's already in use on some networks, and inevitable on 95+% of the rest.
The amount of time spent bike-shedding "well, v4 isn't running out as fast as they say it is" or "NAT will save us" (lol, no) that time is better spent deploying v6. For many installations, its actually not that big of a deal to do.
And we will move, but it's not going to happen until 98% of the world's networking infrastructure (both public and private) is IP6 ready, which probably won't be for another decade.
Hooray, another /8, that'll last us for a good month or so. Exponential growth people, reclaiming unused IP blocks isn't going to stop it.
And that's ignoring the possibilities that a) it's being used internally by its legitimate owners b) it's being used internally by other people. T-Mobile were seen to be (mis)using the /8 that belongs to the UK MOD for their internal networks, I wouldn't be surprised if they were doing that with this as well.
There aren't that many IPv4 addresses. There are no easy fixes. Just move to IPv6 already.
No traces of this block in the public Internet doesn't mean it isn't being used. It may be in use in some internal network(s) instead of a private address range (yes, that happens).
Spot on. Some of the unused blocks owned by the MoD are actually provided to a few top secret things. It wouldn't surprise me if this is the case for this as well.
"The 51.* addresses are in fact heavily used by DWP, but only internally. The best bit is this: for security reasons, there is a policy that in any communication, the leading octet of all such IP addresses must be redacted. Not like it's a matter of public record or anything. I did once toy with the idea of printing out the XKCD map of the IP4 address space, write "you are here" on it and pin it to the wall near DWP data networks teams, but I didn't think it would go down well."
Running NAT behind a routable IP address range AND using a totally different range for all servers, VPNs, and various sysadmin crap? I don't believe it.
There's no way they would be so diligent to use that IP range internally without even a tiny bit of evidence externally.
Who cares? IPv4 is a dead technology and this is like complaining that the UK has a bunch of fax machines in storage somewhere. 10 years ago, this would have been a waste. Now it doesn't even matter.
Comcast is only one ISP. AT&T hasn't yet deployed IPv6 for their residential customers. (I think there are ipv6rd routers available, but you have to know about them and configure your own router to use them, and since it's not an official service, it could be discontinued at any time).
Then there's software. Many web apps don't support IPv6 (db fields limited to ipv4 format, or code assuming ipv4 format). For instance, Internet Brands is too busy with important business, like frivolous lawsuits, to fully support IPv6 in vBulletin. [1]
Some webapps have 3rd party hacks (or even first party hacks) to "support" ipv6 without modifying a lot of ipv4-dependent code, typically by hashing the ipv6 address, taking 32 bits, and using that as the ipv4 address. It's both disgusting and funny.
There's a long way to go before IPv4 is dead.
[1] http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBIV-9397 (you need a vbulletin.com forum login, unfortunately, and maybe also a linked license; in summary, it's a 2-year-old bug for full support of IPv6, it has no comments from vbulletin devs and no assignee.)
How many mobile phones made per day that support some form of internet access and how many of those use IPV6?
Scary thought is it not!
The first real opertunity to move to IPV6 in any way would be mobile smartphones and there like and yet that is not happening. It realy is a case of the ISP's and mobile telco's that need to start initiating the IPV6 move and until they do nobody will be dragged into following.
Maybe if it was illegal to sell devices that don't at least support IPV6. But of a messy situation when you can buy devices made brand new that still dont offer IPV6 support, criminal realy.
Still when you look into the history of British railways and the better modern alternatives you can see how some legacy designs just carry on with there limitations of capacity oversight.
Another aspect is cunsumers have in many respects forgotten how to complain to a company and let there frustrations out on the internet in area's were the companys offering the services will completely fail to notice and allow you to complain and vent of without them even knowing or indeed having to care.
How many of you have asked there internet service provider if they support IPV6 or indeed what there plans are to offer it? Reason I ask is that I can bet it's lower than 1 in 100 or indeed 1 in 100,000. I can't even recall any one of my friends or anybody I know or have dealing with ever mentioning they had made such an enquiry. I know I have, please tell me I'm not alone at least.
When looking into unused IPv4 /8 blocks besides private companies, could somebody please explain how much of the 201,326,592 addresses (12x /8) allocated to the US DoD have ever been used
How much does it cost to "produce" an /8? Nothing. In the "magical" world of the internet, you don't even need to build a network to use the addresses on. Nor do you need to prove that you actually have any sort of "rights" (as the legal kind) over the addresses. Because there is no one who can grant you such rights. Hate to spoil the magick trick, but no one owns the internet. The whole scheme works on cooperation of network admins and acquiescence of everyone else.
And the top post claims it would be worth $1BB. Keep dreaming.
The truth is that the value is not in addresses, the value is in the network, and those who own the infrastructure, but of course there is no single infrastructure for the internet because it's a network of networks, owned by various parties.
The telephone company can charge you for a telephone number. It owns the network that you're going to use it on. If it didn't own the network, you would not pay for the number. You are paying to use the network. The number is just a formality.
This same is not true for the internet and IP numbers. The RIR's don't own any networks. There isn't even a clear line to the source of their authority to "allocate" address space. Does the US Government own the internet? Good luck with that argument. RIR's charge fees to "allocate" addresses, an administrative job, but we have no idea how the fees are spent. Maybe to pay the CEO's generous salary? How much work is it to keep track of some numbers? Maybe we should ask IANA. The whole scheme works based on cooperation and acquiescence.
No organisation ever paid $1BB for an /8. They got theirs for "free" (inconsequential maintenance fees notwithstanding).
Yes. Privately and normally as part of bankruptcy proceedings. The most famous recent example is probably Microsoft's purchase of Nortel's addresses, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12859585
IP blocks are "licensed", not sold. These licenses can be transferred, but only under certain strict conditions.
The ARIN CEO stated [1]
«As you may be aware, ARIN is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) responsible for Internet number resource management for Canada, United States, and parts of the Caribbean. In keeping with the policies developed by the community in this region, there are two possible ways to transfer IPv4 number resources to another party (via merger & acquisition transfer or via specified transfer), and these are detailed in section 8 of the Number Resource Policy Manual on the ARIN website at <https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html>;
It is important to note that transfer of number resources via either method must be to another party that can demonstrate corresponding need. ARIN's registration services department can assist with this determination in advance or at the time of transfer. ARIN reiterates the importance of veracity in transfer requests and supporting documentation as fraudulent information can result in resource revocation.»
NRPM section 8 [2] says
«Number resources are nontransferable and are not assignable to any other organization unless ARIN has expressly and in writing approved a request for transfer.
…
It should be understood that number resources are not 'sold' under ARIN administration. Rather, number resources are assigned to an organization for its exclusive use for the purpose stated in the request, …»
Older blocks allocated directly from IANA have different conditions attached to them that may render the transfer of the these licenses simpler or harder.
Eventually in the future, people will come to realize the over-exaggeration of running out of ipv4 addresses. The unused blocks will come out of woodwork from everywhere. Well, I hope my opinion is wrong.
There's still a finite number of IP addresses that is below all reasonable expectations for how many devices will be wanting an IP address. Reclaiming unused blocks just softens the shock by making the exhaustion less sudden and more gradual. We're still definitely going to run out.
By future do you mean right now where NAT is being used by some providers already? I know Rogers in Canada has all mobile devices going through NAT unless you pay a nice "VPN" fee.
Also the assigned but unused IPv4 blocks don't do anything for other providers that actually need addresses.
Once no more unused addresses turn up, they can start economizing on the used ones too. For example my university gives a publicly routed IP address to EVERY computer, even though most are completely firewalled off.
[+] [-] tptacek|13 years ago|reply
More evidence for the core problem: fiat allocation doesn't work. If there was a functioning, liquid, accessible market for advertisable IP prefixes, you wouldn't have to convince anyone that a /8 was worth $1bn; it just would be.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
Sort of, and sort of not right? Fiat allocation of a fixed resource, sure, but ISO does fiat allocation of OID space and it works because folks are free to grow as much as they want below it. As I recall one of the original 'next gen' IP proposals was like a huge address translation cloud, IPs were encapsulated in yet another layer which provided 'context' for the IP address inside. Basically every entity got their own 32 bit address space and ingress/egress to the Internet resulted in encapsulation and some additional router magic. One of the arguments against was the huge additional bandwidth cost. Of course we didn't realize at the time that few protocol changes could waste as much bandwidth as SPAM does.
The other challenge is that a functioning liquid market for IP addresses would most likely lead to speculation in IP address blocks. Worse is buying an address block from someone in Germany so that packets have to go to Germany first (top level static routing) to the router where they are re-allocated and then to their 'real' destination router. All very inefficient.
I, like other folks at Sun, was a big fan of a more modest 64 bit address proposal for V6, but alas it was not to be. That the conversion has taken as long as it has (and still isn't "here" nearly enough for a lot of users) really illustrates the dangers of the argument to 'permanently' fix things[1]. But innumeracy aside, the confounding issue is that IP addresses are 'structural' like telephone numbers and managing mobility of structural identifiers is always challenging (the cellular market deals with this all the time) so creating a truly liquid marketplace for these identifiers would ideally include fixing the structural issues which would allow the constraints to be fixed and thus eliminate the market.
Bottom line, it would have been great if folks had thought of that first, but they didn't and while future protocol developers can (and should) benefit from that experience, we're stuck with V4 address blocks that are stuck in various regions of the world.
[1] The most persuasive argument against 64 bit addresses was that this would only push the problem down the road, whereas 128 bit addresses fixed things once and for all.
[+] [-] lsc|13 years ago|reply
you are missing a big point. This isn't like real-estate. This is plumbing.
Go do a search on "routing table growth"
This is actually a much larger problem than IPv4 runout. I mean, it's a problem that is further out, but it is going to hit well within my expected lifetime, and it's going to be a dramatically more difficult problem to solve.
The thing is, every time you break up a larger block into a smaller block, every router on the internet needs an entry in their routing tables[1] Usually, in content-addressable memory; Expensive stuff.
The thing is, the size of the global routing table? it's growing faster than moore's law.[2] I mean, it's not a huge deal now; for the price of a new compact car, you can get a router that has enough content-addressable memory to handle full tables and two 10g uplinks with 48 1g downlinks. reasonable cost of entry, if you ask me, and if you use dram (good luck with line rate 10G. don't think about faster line-rate.) well, then the cost is trivial. The routing table is under 500,000 entries in IPv4, so it's a trivial amount of dram.
The problem is that if this continues? (and all indications are that it's going to /massively accelerate/ if IPv6 catches on. At a minimum, you're gonna see the same number of ipv6 routes as ipv4 routes... and because IPv6 addresses are larger, ipv6 routes are larger) those routers are going to get more and more expensive.
So yeah, really? we need a way of charging, not for each IP, but for each announced route. Of course, that comes down hard on the little guys, whereas a per-IP charge is much more progressive. (a /8 takes up as many routing table entries as a /24.)
Getting by with a reduced number of IPs would be way easier for me than getting by without announcing my own block. Without BGP announcing my own block, my ISP has my balls in a vice. If they go down? I go down. More importantly, I need to change IPs when I switch to a new ISP.
I know what this is like, because I started out on my ISPs IP addresses, like almost everyone does. My provider found out that it's hard for me to switch off those IPs, so now I'm paying them, in total, for all the services they provide me, about twice market rate.
(It's actually really interesting, watching the dynamics of this problem play out on PPML or the like. Small players, like me, want to keep it easy to announce smaller blocks. We are fucked if you can only announce large blocks. Large players want tight restrictions on what size of a block you can announce, because they have the address space and they would rather not pay for more super-expensive CAM every time a Luke Crawford gets it in his head to start an ISP.)
[1] This is not strictly true. "every router that matters" would be closer to the truth. If you don't have full tables from multiple upstreams, well, you will be effected by rather more partial outages than if you do.
[2]http://bgp.potaroo.net/
[3]http://bgp.potaroo.net/index-bgp.html
[+] [-] bo1024|13 years ago|reply
There's plenty of numbers to go around; the sooner we get to v6 and get around this mess, the better.
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] forgotusername|13 years ago|reply
Added to that, even if it was seeing only minuscule internal use, the UK government's IT project reputation suggests the renumbering would cost at least as much as the block would sell for, assuming the project would even complete prior to the entire planet properly migrating to v6 and the block losing its value.
[+] [-] s_henry_paulson|13 years ago|reply
We just got audited for RIPE for exactly this reason, and they made us specify details for all of the networks we use on our allocation to be allowed to keep our address space.
[+] [-] tptacek|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
There are a number of ways the IP addresses can not appear to the outside user and still be used as several have mentioned, and of course they can be for some project that isn't yet 'done' (the Coast Guard had a huge block like that as I recall) but the more interesting bit is to track the cost of getting an /24 network its inching up. At the time where the easy stuff has been reclaimed it will shoot up.
[+] [-] cbs|13 years ago|reply
The amount of time spent bike-shedding "well, v4 isn't running out as fast as they say it is" or "NAT will save us" (lol, no) that time is better spent deploying v6. For many installations, its actually not that big of a deal to do.
[+] [-] sjwright|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmm|13 years ago|reply
And that's ignoring the possibilities that a) it's being used internally by its legitimate owners b) it's being used internally by other people. T-Mobile were seen to be (mis)using the /8 that belongs to the UK MOD for their internal networks, I wouldn't be surprised if they were doing that with this as well.
There aren't that many IPv4 addresses. There are no easy fixes. Just move to IPv6 already.
[+] [-] tomjen3|13 years ago|reply
Between the bunch MIT got, the bunch that the military got and the bunch that IBM got, we can implement an entirely new protocol before we run out.
[+] [-] CrLf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eckyptang|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|13 years ago|reply
"The 51.* addresses are in fact heavily used by DWP, but only internally. The best bit is this: for security reasons, there is a policy that in any communication, the leading octet of all such IP addresses must be redacted. Not like it's a matter of public record or anything. I did once toy with the idea of printing out the XKCD map of the IP4 address space, write "you are here" on it and pin it to the wall near DWP data networks teams, but I didn't think it would go down well."
[+] [-] sjwright|13 years ago|reply
There's no way they would be so diligent to use that IP range internally without even a tiny bit of evidence externally.
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|13 years ago|reply
Even Comcast supports IPv6.
[+] [-] harshreality|13 years ago|reply
Then there's software. Many web apps don't support IPv6 (db fields limited to ipv4 format, or code assuming ipv4 format). For instance, Internet Brands is too busy with important business, like frivolous lawsuits, to fully support IPv6 in vBulletin. [1]
Some webapps have 3rd party hacks (or even first party hacks) to "support" ipv6 without modifying a lot of ipv4-dependent code, typically by hashing the ipv6 address, taking 32 bits, and using that as the ipv4 address. It's both disgusting and funny.
There's a long way to go before IPv4 is dead.
[1] http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBIV-9397 (you need a vbulletin.com forum login, unfortunately, and maybe also a linked license; in summary, it's a 2-year-old bug for full support of IPv6, it has no comments from vbulletin devs and no assignee.)
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wglb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lolryan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] X-Istence|13 years ago|reply
That being said, here is a list of people in charge of allocations: http://www.ampr.org/oldsite/amprnets.txt
[+] [-] aidenn0|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zenst|13 years ago|reply
Scary thought is it not!
The first real opertunity to move to IPV6 in any way would be mobile smartphones and there like and yet that is not happening. It realy is a case of the ISP's and mobile telco's that need to start initiating the IPV6 move and until they do nobody will be dragged into following.
Maybe if it was illegal to sell devices that don't at least support IPV6. But of a messy situation when you can buy devices made brand new that still dont offer IPV6 support, criminal realy.
Still when you look into the history of British railways and the better modern alternatives you can see how some legacy designs just carry on with there limitations of capacity oversight.
Another aspect is cunsumers have in many respects forgotten how to complain to a company and let there frustrations out on the internet in area's were the companys offering the services will completely fail to notice and allow you to complain and vent of without them even knowing or indeed having to care.
How many of you have asked there internet service provider if they support IPV6 or indeed what there plans are to offer it? Reason I ask is that I can bet it's lower than 1 in 100 or indeed 1 in 100,000. I can't even recall any one of my friends or anybody I know or have dealing with ever mentioning they had made such an enquiry. I know I have, please tell me I'm not alone at least.
[+] [-] wmf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fpp|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rightyeah|13 years ago|reply
And the top post claims it would be worth $1BB. Keep dreaming.
The truth is that the value is not in addresses, the value is in the network, and those who own the infrastructure, but of course there is no single infrastructure for the internet because it's a network of networks, owned by various parties.
The telephone company can charge you for a telephone number. It owns the network that you're going to use it on. If it didn't own the network, you would not pay for the number. You are paying to use the network. The number is just a formality.
This same is not true for the internet and IP numbers. The RIR's don't own any networks. There isn't even a clear line to the source of their authority to "allocate" address space. Does the US Government own the internet? Good luck with that argument. RIR's charge fees to "allocate" addresses, an administrative job, but we have no idea how the fees are spent. Maybe to pay the CEO's generous salary? How much work is it to keep track of some numbers? Maybe we should ask IANA. The whole scheme works based on cooperation and acquiescence.
No organisation ever paid $1BB for an /8. They got theirs for "free" (inconsequential maintenance fees notwithstanding).
[+] [-] eddanger|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FuzzyDunlop|13 years ago|reply
IPv6 is still not mainstream, so this figure can reasonably increase over time with the increase in IPv4 scarcity.
Thus it stands to reason not to sell out just yet.
[+] [-] 7952|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drucken|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gioele|13 years ago|reply
IP blocks are "licensed", not sold. These licenses can be transferred, but only under certain strict conditions.
The ARIN CEO stated [1]
«As you may be aware, ARIN is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) responsible for Internet number resource management for Canada, United States, and parts of the Caribbean. In keeping with the policies developed by the community in this region, there are two possible ways to transfer IPv4 number resources to another party (via merger & acquisition transfer or via specified transfer), and these are detailed in section 8 of the Number Resource Policy Manual on the ARIN website at <https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html>;
It is important to note that transfer of number resources via either method must be to another party that can demonstrate corresponding need. ARIN's registration services department can assist with this determination in advance or at the time of transfer. ARIN reiterates the importance of veracity in transfer requests and supporting documentation as fraudulent information can result in resource revocation.»
NRPM section 8 [2] says
«Number resources are nontransferable and are not assignable to any other organization unless ARIN has expressly and in writing approved a request for transfer.
…
It should be understood that number resources are not 'sold' under ARIN administration. Rather, number resources are assigned to an organization for its exclusive use for the purpose stated in the request, …»
Older blocks allocated directly from IANA have different conditions attached to them that may render the transfer of the these licenses simpler or harder.
[1] http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2011-August/038888....
[2] https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#eight
[+] [-] webwanderings|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wtallis|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SG-|13 years ago|reply
Also the assigned but unused IPv4 blocks don't do anything for other providers that actually need addresses.
[+] [-] andreasvc|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerd_in_rage|13 years ago|reply
If I knew now what I knew then, I would've gone for a class B block. lol.
[+] [-] jwatte|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] infinitivium|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheGateKeeper|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfox|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izx|13 years ago|reply
http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2011/05/12/namecoin-a-dns-alter...