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AWS IPv4 Estate Now Worth $4.5B

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Re: AWS IPv4 Estate Now Worth $4.5B

#61

Post by kxrm »

yla92 wrote: post #17

Some noob questions here. How does one buy a block of IPv4 as an individual? (If that's allowed) After you purchase it, how does it come into your possession? How do you utilize them?

I actually went through this process with ARIN. So I can give you that perspective. It wasn't a big deal, the only minor concern I had was it felt like you're encouraged to sign up under a business entity. I had an LLC, so it was natural just to use that. I don't know what kind of vetting they do if you decide to use yourself as an organization though instead of a different legal entity.

You need to provide justification, and frankly it's not that big of a challenge to get a /22 which is what I got. As long as you can show how you would like to use them and over what time frame, they will allow you to go through with the acquisition. An ASN is not required to get any IP block. You can always associate your IPs with any ASN that you want so long as that ASN owner is cooperating with you. I went ahead and grabbed an ASN for ease but some ISPs will allow you to use their ASN.

You also do not have to purchase an IPv4 block from someone. You can go through the normal IPv4 request process, however the waitlist [1] is now over a year long for IPv4. However IPv6 are given out very quickly. IPs you acquire this way are "free" to acquire with your ARIN membership. Your membership dues are determined by the assets you hold, there is a fee schedule [2] and you need to pay it annually to maintain your membership and ASN/IP assignments.

I encourage anyone interested in understanding this process to go through it, it didn't take a ton of time nor did it cost a lot in the grand scheme of things. Being an ARIN member also entitles you to be a part of how IPs are governed in the region you acquired them in. They will occasionally send out surveys and you can vote on issues.

[1] https://www.arin.net/resources/guide/ipv4/waiting_list/

[2] https://www.arin.net/resources/fees/fee_schedule/

Re: AWS IPv4 Estate Now Worth $4.5B

#62

Post by kxrm »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #42

What is the IP "ownership" model? is $35 to "own" the IP. What is the law around this (do companies contest who owns what IP)

IP blocks allocations are assets but they are granted by the RIR. [1] Your allocation is given to you in exchange for being a member of the RIR. You don't actually own the IPs, but you do have exclusive rights to them but the RIR can ultimately decide to revoke your rights to them for violating RIR policies.

RIRs do allow you to transfer your IP blocks to other organizations but you can only do so if the receiving organization proves to the RIR they have a good reason to hold those blocks of IPs. This valuation is based on what a typical IPv4 owner receives in exchange for that transfer of IPv4 addresses.

Just like any assets which you hold a lot of, if AWS dumped their IP addresses on the transfer market, the price of IPv4s would likely fall significantly so I doubt they could actually get that price for all their IPv4s.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Internet_registry

Re: AWS IPv4 Estate Now Worth $4.5B

#63

Post by kxrm »

Narkov wrote: post #43
tamrix wrote: post #11

I can promise you no one is paying $35 per IPv4 address.

Go on...what are people paying then? More or less?

If you are willing to wait, you pay nothing. However, let's keep in mind that this evaluation is based on the private transfer market place for IPv4s not based on actual RIR costs.

You must be an RIR member to hold IPs and there are membership dues that you must pay each year to maintain your allocation. Once you are a member of an RIR you just have to make a request and at least with ARIN that request and fulfillment is free.

Re: AWS IPv4 Estate Now Worth $4.5B

#64

Post by CMCDragonkai »

kxrm wrote: post #61
yla92 wrote: post #17

Some noob questions here. How does one buy a block of IPv4 as an individual? (If that's allowed) After you purchase it, how does it come into your possession? How do you utilize them?

I actually went through this process with ARIN. So I can give you that perspective. It wasn't a big deal, the only minor concern I had was it felt like you're encouraged to sign up under a business entity. I had an LLC, so it was natural just to use that. I don't know what kind of vetting they do if you decide to use yourself as an organization though instead of a different legal entity. You need to provide justifica…

I'm curious if one were to be certain nation state and was happy being a completely isolated intranet, that they would just exit such arin or related associations and just create their own governing body of IP allocations? In such a case such an internet would be a completely separate internet right?

I wonder if sanctions may ever apply to the internet itself and we may see a break up of the internet into regional internet's.

And if we want to ensure global connectivity these associations would need to be completely independent and voluntary standard and such fees would be paid to an international standards body not beholden to any particular nation's whims?

What if nations started adding intercontinental NAT gateways acting as the entry and exit points between their national boundaries and the rest of the world.

Re: AWS IPv4 Estate Now Worth $4.5B

#66

Post by LilBytes »

leoh wrote: post #31

fwiw, ATT charges me $15 for ~8 fixed ipv4 addresses on my gigabit plan. Even if we amortize against the total monthly bill of $113, we get ~$15 per IP. EDIT: I guess this is the cost to _rent_ an IP per month and not the cost of _owning_ an IPv4 address.

My ISP has one of the better options where you can permanently lease an IPv4 address for a deposit of $100 AUD. The lease is indefinite, and when you don't want it any more you get the $100 back.

Re: AWS IPv4 Estate Now Worth $4.5B

#67

Post by irrational »

malikNF wrote: post #65

Question for the networking folk here. How can the rest of us help move things over to ipv6?

I’ve been hearing about ipv4 running out and the need to move to ipv6 for so many years/decades, but it keeps not happening. I’m wondering if anything will change in my lifetime.

Re: AWS IPv4 Estate Now Worth $4.5B

#69

Post by wmf »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #42

What is the IP "ownership" model? is $35 to "own" the IP. What is the law around this (do companies contest who owns what IP)

The precedent for this came from Nortel's bankruptcy where they sold IPs to Microsoft. Some tried to argue that Nortel should have given up the addresses for free but the court ruled that IPs are property.

Re: AWS IPv4 Estate Now Worth $4.5B

#70

Post by raverbashing »

015a wrote: post #40
atyvr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yah, it certainly seems like maybe that was peak pricing. This write up has some more data on historical pricing https://www.ipxo.com/blog/ipv4-price-history/ I've also heard folks pay quite a bit over the average price for novelty IP addresses, so perhaps that skewed the data? I'd love to be able to buy 2.2.2.0/23 or my favorite 42.42.42.0/24

Yeah, one example is Cloudflare and 1.1.1.1; though the story behind that is less about money and far more interesting. Apparently, APNIC had owned 1.1.1.1 for, basically, forever, but were never able to actually use it for anything because it caught so much garbage traffic. Cloudflare is one of only a handful of service providers that could announce the IP and handle the traffic; so in exchange for helping APNIC's r…

So, what happened to everything that expected 1.1.1.1 to error out and now is getting something?

(not worried about them, just curious)

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