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Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

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Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

44.192.0.0/10 was sold which equals 4,194,304 IP addresses. At $20.00/address that comes out to a cool $83,886,040. Using this to base the IP address cost: https://auctions.ipv4.global/prior-sales

None of the big guys are paying this much, especially for blocks this size. $5-10/IP.

Except we will never actually know...

73 DE WP3NIS

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#42
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s frustrating that they paint the unused space as evidence of of abandonment, but the reality is that it’s been impossible to use any of this address space!

I didn't even know about it until yesterday! It's kept quiet and secret I guess. As a ham for 10 years now, I totally would've used this for projects if I could've got allocated space. I believe http://hamwan.org/ is on 44.0.0.0.

As someone who does not know any more about ham radio than can be inferred from "Contact" and "Stranger Things", I'm curious to know what kind of projects you would have used it for.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#43
post #4

> These days, less than one third of the address space is assigned and in use. Large chunks of it have almost never been used This part probably angers me the most as I (and I'm sure many others) have asked for an allocation in this address space and after waiting months without reply was eventually denied the request.

I’m not usually a “let the market decide” person, but ARIN has only made this problem worse with their idealism over reality policies. Their response has continued to be “time to switch to ipv6” which grossly oversimplifies the reality of the issue. Oddly enough, the Europeans, through RIPE are doing it right by allowing a market system so that unused but assigned net blocks can be sold to people that actually have a…

I believe the op is not talking about a denial by ARIN. The 44 space is administered by a series of volunteers that I believe is distributed worldwide. Some people in the amateur radio community like to create little fiefdoms and the distribution of subnets in 44 is not immune to this type of gate keeping.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the big guys are paying this much, especially for blocks this size. $5-10/IP.

Except we will never actually know... 73 DE WP3NIS

We will know because they will have to report the income on their public tax return.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#45

The money involved in IPv4 allocations - and name allocations too - really sickens me. It's a blemish on humanity and a testament to the limitless nature of human greed. IANA (and ICANN as a whole) is a corrupt, captured organization that I think represents the worst of the internet when it should have been the best of it. Removing price caps on .org, gold rushing outrageously priced gTLDs to anyone with the money (p…

I'm confused. You're blaming humanity because a marketplace developed following the scarcity of a commodity? Why was any of this bad behavior? I'm genuinely confused.

He's blaming humanity for maintaining a commodity as scarce, rather than working to alleviate the scarcity.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#46

The money involved in IPv4 allocations - and name allocations too - really sickens me. It's a blemish on humanity and a testament to the limitless nature of human greed. IANA (and ICANN as a whole) is a corrupt, captured organization that I think represents the worst of the internet when it should have been the best of it. Removing price caps on .org, gold rushing outrageously priced gTLDs to anyone with the money (p…

> gold rushing outrageously priced gTLDs to anyone with the money

I'm actually happy about that one. For realistic usage, it mostly went nowhere. People with money paid lots and got something they wanted. It's like a crazy rich person building a castle because they can. I'm happy they distributed the money.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#47

The money involved in IPv4 allocations - and name allocations too - really sickens me. It's a blemish on humanity and a testament to the limitless nature of human greed. IANA (and ICANN as a whole) is a corrupt, captured organization that I think represents the worst of the internet when it should have been the best of it. Removing price caps on .org, gold rushing outrageously priced gTLDs to anyone with the money (p…

I'm confused. You're blaming humanity because a marketplace developed following the scarcity of a commodity? Why was any of this bad behavior? I'm genuinely confused.

Here's my take - creating a marketplace where a sole actor has control over a scarce resource (IP addresses) is exactly why anti-trust exists. A true marketplace assumes there is competition. How do you have competition when the underlying resource (1) has a clearly understood finite number (2) is controlled by one entity and (3) can't be differentiated in any way (e.g. 10.0.0.0/8 has no differentiated intrinsic or extrinsic value over 11.0.0.0/8).

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#48

The money involved in IPv4 allocations - and name allocations too - really sickens me. It's a blemish on humanity and a testament to the limitless nature of human greed. IANA (and ICANN as a whole) is a corrupt, captured organization that I think represents the worst of the internet when it should have been the best of it. Removing price caps on .org, gold rushing outrageously priced gTLDs to anyone with the money (p…

> gold rushing outrageously priced gTLDs to anyone with the money I'm actually happy about that one. For realistic usage, it mostly went nowhere. People with money paid lots and got something they wanted. It's like a crazy rich person building a castle because they can. I'm happy they distributed the money.

the only person it gets "distributed to" is ICANN

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ARDC had administrative control of 44.0.0.0/8 for decades. It's not squatting... It's their space. There aren't enough active Hams in the world to use all of it, so nothing is lost. We'll all benefit more from Amazon and their customers making use of some of it.

I don't like mega-corporations stealing away the "public land" of the RF spectrum. This is like having a nice public park in your neighborhood get replaced with a Goldman Sachs corporate building.

The ARDC may have stolen something from their community but I don't think Amazon got that IP range for free.

Re: Amateur radio digital communications 44.0.0.0/8 partial sell-off

#50
I would have more faith that the ARDC will use the proceeds from the sale for the benefit of the ham community at large if they engaged the community beforehand.

It seems to me that they saw the opportunity to make a lot of money, and figured having a lot of money is a good problem to have and they could figure out what to do with it later.

The fact that they have no specific public plans for the money is telling. They mention vague plans for grants, scholarships and a perpetual endowment, but how do we know they won't keep most of it in the endowment and use most of the interest to pay board member salaries? If the board decided to do that, who could stop them? Who elects the board?

I particularly don't like this response:

> This makes me one of a VERY small group of people with any arguable personal property interest in network 44. And yes, 25% of this space, which is VERY unlikely to ever be used by hams, has been sold to Amazon.

> Rather than try to personally profit from this, we all readily agreed to place the entire proceeds of this sale into a 501(c)(3) charity chartered to support amateur digital radio and related developments. No one is buying a yacht or a mansion.

https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2019-July/102138.h...

I'm not saying I expect the board will use the money to buy a yacht or a mansion, but the whole tone of that email makes it sound like they feel entitled to do so, and it was only their own magnanimity that caused them to give the proceeds to a 501(c)(3).

I'd much rather the board of the organization see themselves as stewards who are not personally entitled to the money. Otherwise you end up with "charities" like the Trump Foundation.

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