IPv4 Markets

Digging Into IPv6 Traffic to Google: Is 28% Deployment Really the Limit?

After some years of accelerating IPv6 deployment, we are now into a period of slower growth and it's not clear where we are heading. It is therefore interesting to try to predict the future of IPv6 over the coming years. At Ericsson Research, we have been working on this topic since 2013, but just recently created a forecast model that seems to be quite accurate. However, it gives a disappointing message of a very low final level of IPv6 deployment at less than 30%! more

A Look Back at the World of IP Addressing in 2018: What Changed and What to Expect

Time for another annual roundup from the world of IP addresses. Let's see what has changed in the past 12 months in addressing the Internet and look at how IP address allocation information can inform us of the changing nature of the network itself. Back in around 1992 the IETF gazed into the crystal ball and tried to understand how the internet was going to evolve and what demands that would place on the addressing system as part of the "IP Next Generation" study. more

The IPv4 Market - 2018 Mid-Year Report

The number of IPv4 transactions and volume of IP addresses flowing to and from organizations in the ARIN region in the last 6 months put 2018 on track to be the most active year in the history of the IPv4 market. Nearly 25 million numbers were transferred in the first half of this year, more than doubling the volume of numbers transferred by this time last year and continuing the level of market activity in the last half of 2017 when just over 28 million numbers were transferred. more

IPv4 Historical Imbalances and the Threat to IPv6

It is an open secret that the current state of IPv4 allocation contains many accidental historical imbalances and in particular developing countries who wish to use IPv4 are disadvantaged by the lack of addresses available through ordinary allocation and are forced into purchasing addresses on the open market. As most of the addresses for sale are held by organisations based in the developed world, this amounts to a transfer of wealth from the developing world to the developed world, on terms set by the developed world. more

What Drives IPv6 Deployment?

It's been six years since World IPv6 Launch day on the 6th June 2012. In those six years, we've managed to place ever-increasing pressure on the dwindling pools of available IPv4 addresses, but we have still been unable to complete the transition to an all-IPv6 Internet. Nobody predicted this situation when we first thought about the consequences of running out of IPv4 addresses. We all thought that the depletion of IPv4 addresses would in a continuously expanding Internet provide sufficient rationale for IPv6. more

A Look Back at the World of IP Addressing in 2017: What Changed and What to Expect

There is no doubt that the Internet continues to grow. While the sales volumes of the more traditional forms of personal computers has peaked at some 430 million units per year and sales of handheld smart devices has also peaked at some 1.9 billion units per year, the world of the Internet of Things continues to spiral upward. The installed base of these "things" is now at an astonishing 8.4 billion at the end of 2017. more

Is it Finally Time to Eliminate Needs-Based IPv4 Transfer Policies?

Two weeks before depletion of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) IPv4 free pool in September 2015, we published an article recommending that the ARIN community adopt transfer policies that encourage trading transparency and improve whois registry accuracy. By eliminating needs justification as a pre-condition to updating the registry, we argued that ARIN could eliminate existing policy-based barriers that have kept many otherwise lawful and legitimate commercial transactions in the shadows. more

An Opinion in Defence of NATs

Network Address Translation has often been described as an unfortunate aberration in the evolution of the Internet, and one that will be expunged with the completion of the transition of IPv6. I think that this view, which appears to form part of today's conventional wisdom about the Internet unnecessarily vilifies NATs. In my opinion, NATs are far from being an aberration, and instead, I see them as an informative step in the evolution of the Internet, particularly as they relate to possibilities in the evolution of name-based networking. Here's why. more

Unlocking the Hidden Value Within Your IT Organization

Many C-level executives are unaware their IT organizations could be sitting on a lucrative sellable supply of unused IPv4 addresses. Assessing and executing on the opportunity takes planning, but there's a clear path for getting it done. In 2014 and 2015, buyers had their pick of large block holders with millions of available and unused numbers. This surplus allowed large buyers to shop around for the lowest offer and, as a result, drive prices down to a low of $4/number. more

Internet Governance for Sustainability

Sustainability is a difficult term to avoid these days. With that in mind, it's somewhat surprising that last week's European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG), now in its tenth year, featured one of its first workshops looking at the subject. But while the workshop focused on issues of energy usage and e-waste, the concept of sustainability raises some much broader and likely difficult questions for the Internet governance community. more

Verizon to Stop Issuing New Public IPv4 Addresses

Verizon has announced that starting June 30, 2017, it will stop issuing new Public Static IPv4 addresses due to a shortage of available addresses. more

Commercial Incentives Behind IPv6 Deployment

The Best Practice Forum (BPF) on IPv6 at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) explored what economic and commercial incentives drive providers, companies and organizations to deploy IPv6 on their networks and for their services. The BPF collected case studies, held open discussions online and at the 2016 IGF meeting, and produced a comprehensive output report. This article gives a high-level overview. more

Is There a Positive Business Case for IPv6? We Are About to Find Out, If You Help Us…

Large-scale IPv6 deployments suggest that IPv6 is at least a technical success, the technology works. Time to visit the other important question: does it work commercially. Does IPv6 really come with a positive business case? We are about to find out, if you help us... The Internet technical community has spent about two decades making IPv6 work on a technical level. We have developed the protocol, modified and expanded a few others; we set up the registry system and distributed the addresses. more

IP Addresses Are Not Telephone Numbers - The Fundamental Flaw with the FCC’s Proposed Privacy Rules

Last month the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI), the information telcos collect about consumers' phone calls. The Commission's proposed rules would adapt and apply privacy rules that have historically applied to the traditional telephone space to broadband carriers. It would also regulate how broadband providers use and share that data. more

Is IPv6 an Essential Precondition for Internet of Things? Or Are Things Just Fine with IPv4?

It has often been claimed that IPv6 and the Internet of Things are strongly aligned, to the extent that claims are made they are mutually reliant. An Internet of Things needs the massively expanded protocol address space that only IPv6 can provide, while IPv6 needs to identify a compelling use case to provide a substantive foundation to justify the additional expenditures associated with a widespread deployment of this new protocol that only the Internet of Things can provide. more