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Microsoft spends $7.5m on IP addresses

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft spends $7.5m on IP addresses

#41

Post by rbanffy »

ori_b wrote: post #20
rbanffy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about IPv6?

How many ISPs and consumers are set up to use it? I think it's still a while before IPv6 will be viable.

The one I work for is. The one that provides my cable modem is too. I don't know how others are, but if those two are, I should assume it's more common than you think.

Re: Microsoft spends $7.5m on IP addresses

#42

Post by rbanffy »

kia wrote: post #8

I think strategically it's a wise move. For MS 7.5m is a small sum. In case IPv6 will not be deployed at the speed we all want their investment will pay off tenfold because IPv4 addresses will be gold. They try to hedge the address exhaustion risk.

They probably can measure the adoption of IPv6 from the usage data Windows desktops volunteer back to MS. That said, I would guess they predicted (at least in March) a scarcity of addresses for their cloud offering before IPv6 becomes widespread.

Re: Microsoft spends $7.5m on IP addresses

#43

Post by rweir »

joshaidan wrote: post #29

So, $7.5 million for 666,624 IP addresses. Now the question is, how much is the 16,777,214 IP addresses that Apple owns worth? (Apple owns the entire 17.0.0.0 Class A subnet) Was this factored into Apple's valuation? I would love to hear the story behind how Apple got the 17.0.0.0 subnet.

the story is "they asked for it and were allocated it under the allocation rules at the time". pre-CIDR, you could get a class A, B or C (mostly), and a class-B isn't /that/ many IPs for a large and growing company when effectively no one else used the Internet at all.
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