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Sale of amateur radio AMPRnet TCP/IP addresses raised $108M

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Re: Sale of amateur radio AMPRnet TCP/IP addresses raised $108M

#41

Post by mike_d »

tzs wrote: post #15
rswail wrote: post #4

Is there any wonder that moving to IPv6 is delayed? Assuming an average $25/address, that's $400m/class A. Some of the organizations that own a class A: Apple, Ford, Softbank, Daimler, Prudential, Comcast. Softbank needs the money and the others wouldn't sniff at $300m+. Not sure how long the 100m odd addresses would last though.

Comcast started rolling out IPv6 across their network a long time ago. They hit 100% support on their broadband network in 2014. They run a lot of the own stuff on IPv6, such as on-demand video on their set-top boxes. I think any home modem/router that they support that did not support IPv6 hit EOL long ago and was replaced. There may be some class A owners who are trying to hold back IPv6 so they can make money off…

Deploying IPv6 is nice, but it doesn't impact the value of IPv4 at all.

Any internet service you want to be widely available will need to be dual-stack as long as we are alive.

Re: Sale of amateur radio AMPRnet TCP/IP addresses raised $108M

#42

Post by rcoveson »

metalliqaz wrote: post #34
rcoveson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a law governing the ham radio bands' usage in general. No encrypted/obscured communications. In fact, you have to regularly, unambiguously, and publicly identify yourself every ten minutes if I recall.

why?

Well, you're using an extremely limited global resource. Blasting your voice around the world with 1,500 watts behind it is something that not everybody can do at once. So we need some sort of internationally agreeable rule set. The compromises include no encryption, required licensing, individual identification, no political speech, and others. But what we get in return is pretty cool: I can talk to somebody in Japan in a truly peer-to-peer fashion, using nothing but our own hardware in our own homes and the natural electromagnetic properties of the atmosphere.

If encryption were allowed on the ham bands, they would probably become dominated by general purpose digital communications; likely to the exclusion of their current purpose.

Re: Sale of amateur radio AMPRnet TCP/IP addresses raised $108M

#43

Post by nixgeek »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #33
rswail wrote: post #4

Is there any wonder that moving to IPv6 is delayed? Assuming an average $25/address, that's $400m/class A. Some of the organizations that own a class A: Apple, Ford, Softbank, Daimler, Prudential, Comcast. Softbank needs the money and the others wouldn't sniff at $300m+. Not sure how long the 100m odd addresses would last though.

> Assuming an average $25/address It'll be $50/address in a year, $100/address in 2022; I'm sure of it. Methinks now would be a very good time to invest^wspeculate in IPv4 addresses - I reckon it will be the next Bitcoin bubble-type event and likely even make it to the silly segment of TV news, with lampoonably inaccurate explanations of what an IPv4 address is to the general public.

Its been appreciating slowly for the last 5 years, I’ve seen deals in the $20-25 range throughout that time, and a few larger contiguous blocks going for a little more but not $50/ea.

You can monitor secondary market prices through RIPE fairly easily. What’s leading you to be sure it will increase 400% in the next 24 months?

Re: Sale of amateur radio AMPRnet TCP/IP addresses raised $108M

#45

Post by jonas21 »

ConcernedCoder wrote: post #13
drmpeg wrote: post #2

The precise numbers are 4,194,304 * $26.13 = $109,597,164 - broker fee of $545,260 = $109,051,904 net.

broker fee of $545,260 boy am I in the wrong business... I'm imagining something like: "Hey you want to buy?" ... "Yes!"... cha ching!

Meanwhile, here I am thinking, "Only 0.5%? Where were you when I sold my house?"

Re: Sale of amateur radio AMPRnet TCP/IP addresses raised $108M

#46

Post by drmpeg »

CydeWeys wrote: post #29
leoedin wrote: post #17

This seems like a prudent decision on the part of the ARDC, and potentially a good boost to lots of interesting radio-adjacent projects. Hopefully they can maintain their organisational culture. Large amounts of money can be very damaging to organisations which aren't set up to handle it.

For their (and their mission's) sake, I hope they treat it like an endowment, amend their charter now to lock it up, and then only use the proceeds.

You can read about their investments here:

https://www.ampr.org/about/legal/

At the bottom of the page are the audited financial statement and tax return for 2019.

Re: Sale of amateur radio AMPRnet TCP/IP addresses raised $108M

#47

Post by metalliqaz »

rcoveson wrote: post #42
metalliqaz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why?

Well, you're using an extremely limited global resource. Blasting your voice around the world with 1,500 watts behind it is something that not everybody can do at once. So we need some sort of internationally agreeable rule set. The compromises include no encryption, required licensing, individual identification, no political speech, and others. But what we get in return is pretty cool: I can talk to somebody in Japa…

I'm not making the connection. If encoded data is allowed (unencrypted), why isn't it already dominated by general purpose digital comms?

Re: Sale of amateur radio AMPRnet TCP/IP addresses raised $108M

#48

Post by criddell »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #36
tzs wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comcast started rolling out IPv6 across their network a long time ago. They hit 100% support on their broadband network in 2014. They run a lot of the own stuff on IPv6, such as on-demand video on their set-top boxes. I think any home modem/router that they support that did not support IPv6 hit EOL long ago and was replaced. There may be some class A owners who are trying to hold back IPv6 so they can make money off…

> Apple has long had IPv6 support in their operating systems, so I don't think they have been trying to hold it back either. And Microsoft has supported IPv6 since Windows 2000: https://news.microsoft.com/2000/03/15/microsoft-announces-ip... . I understand that LTE networks are exclusively IPv6, ditto "5G". My frustration with IPv6 is that my home ISP (Wave Broadband's DOCSIS service) is still IPv4 and they still hav…

> I want IPv6 so I can stop having to faff around with NAT.

What makes you think your ISP will give you more than one IP even when they are no longer in short supply? If it's something that has value to you, it's something they will want to be paid for.

Re: Sale of amateur radio AMPRnet TCP/IP addresses raised $108M

#49

Post by wmf »

mike_d wrote: post #41
tzs wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comcast started rolling out IPv6 across their network a long time ago. They hit 100% support on their broadband network in 2014. They run a lot of the own stuff on IPv6, such as on-demand video on their set-top boxes. I think any home modem/router that they support that did not support IPv6 hit EOL long ago and was replaced. There may be some class A owners who are trying to hold back IPv6 so they can make money off…

Deploying IPv6 is nice, but it doesn't impact the value of IPv4 at all. Any internet service you want to be widely available will need to be dual-stack as long as we are alive.

If (eventually) each service needs an IPv4 address, that implies that there isn't a shortage and thus the value of addresses would be near zero.

Re: Sale of amateur radio AMPRnet TCP/IP addresses raised $108M

#50

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

nixgeek wrote: post #43
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assuming an average $25/address It'll be $50/address in a year, $100/address in 2022; I'm sure of it. Methinks now would be a very good time to invest^wspeculate in IPv4 addresses - I reckon it will be the next Bitcoin bubble-type event and likely even make it to the silly segment of TV news, with lampoonably inaccurate explanations of what an IPv4 address is to the general public.

Its been appreciating slowly for the last 5 years, I’ve seen deals in the $20-25 range throughout that time, and a few larger contiguous blocks going for a little more but not $50/ea. You can monitor secondary market prices through RIPE fairly easily. What’s leading you to be sure it will increase 400% in the next 24 months?

> What’s leading you to be sure it will increase 400% in the next 24 months?

Honestly? Just a hunch. But also looking at trends on IPv4Auctions.com (now auctions.ip4.global), a few years ago blocks would go for $7/address, now they're $25/address - and as demand for IPv4 addresses won't be going away[1] and supply will only decrease (barring rare gluts of supply like AMPRnet's when a major /21 or /16 is broken down into smaller blocks to auction off).

I think $100/address would be an upper-bound though, because at that point it's likely cheaper to finally invest in IPv6 deployment, including issuing new CPE than it costs to retain IPv4.

[1] If an ISP could have deployed IPv6 by now then they would have done 5+ years ago. Any ISPs that haven't already deployed IPv6 by now (or even 5 years ago) must be facing some massive internal hurdles, such as incompetent management who see it as a massive and unnecessary technical expense when CG-NAT is good-enough for the majority of their customers - or have a hetereogenous network that would be a nightmare to bring up-to-code on any reasonable timescale). The only way these ISPs will upgrade is when the cost of operating an IPv4 network becomes unbearable - hence why I want to see IPv4 address costs skyrocket :)

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