As the ARIN free pool steadily dwindles to empty – now with the lowest number of IPv4 addresses of any RIR, prices bottom out, and news on IPv4 exhaustion picks up speed. Meanwhile, the UK government comes off the sidelines, selling its first trance of numbers in the IPv4 market.
The ARIN IPv4 free pool continues to decline while the transfer market is heating up and IPv6 penetration continues at a glacial pace. In the meantime RIPE’s draft policy that would open up the ARIN market to interRIR transfers with Europe is in its final phase.
An efficient global IPv4 market will provide the Internet community 5 to 7 more years on IPv4 to facilitate a migration to IPv6 that follows normal technology adoption patterns. The depletion of the RIR free pool of IPv4 numbers isn’t the end of the road for IPv4. Two recent articles written in Information Week discuss the meaning of IPv4 exhaustion from different and opposing perspectives.
Removing needs assessment as a pre-condition to recording IPv4 address trasnsfers in ARIN’s registry database will promote an efficient IPv4 market and facilitate IPv6 adoption.