Re: [Starlink] APNIC56 last week

[Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz>]

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On 25/09/2023 5:40 pm, Noel Butler via Starlink wrote:
> Mail is mostly Australian since that's where my userbase is, but there 
> is considerable international (even when I exclude the spambots, 
> gmail, outlook socials etc), as for WWW, and excluding most bots, last 
> time I checked webalizer the figures on a couple of my sites were less 
> than 10% from Aus and the rest (obviously) international, so its more 
> varied than one might think, but it does vary depending on the site 
> being visited, I don't run the BBC or CNN, so of course I wont see the 
> diverse ranges they will.
IPv6 adoption in Australia (and NZ) is a bit behind the curve, 
internationally.
>> So you're in the process of being outnumbered. But that's perhaps of 
>> academic interest only, for now, at least.
> Yes, like I previously said, not in my lifetime.
I'm not sure how old you are, but I could imagine things going pretty 
quickly from some point onwards.
>> I came home from APNIC54 last year with the insight that my 
>> employer's /16 IPv4 allocation was worth around US$3.5 million. Since 
>> we've had the /16 for ages, I started wondering whether this was even 
>> on our asset list. I was pretty sure that it ought to be. Turns out 
>> it wasn't - when
> I've no doubt they aren't on many, but putting a price on an 
> intangible asset that varies is not so easy, what it's worth today it 
> wont be in six months, yes, with ipv4 that means probably worth more, 
> but a new buyer might not want nor need them, so that's another sales 
> stream you need to find, and then you're competing against others with 
> the same asset, a CGNAT device is physical one they can keep using 
> without interrupting services to clients if they so choose, the only 
> intangible asset that's worth something is the ongoing good will, you 
> don't get that from address space unless you have a fresh faced 
> startup type buyer. I'm curious though, your part of a University, so 
> it's not like you're going to be able to use that extra 3.5m, I don;t 
> see the Uni giving up its resources, a business of course is a 
> different matter.

The point is that an IPv4 allocation is no longer a resource unless you 
have an active need for it. We've sold entire campuses lately, so I 
wouldn't bet on IPv4 holdings... Incidentally, goodwill isn't the only 
intangible asset that's worth something - my father used to work in that 
space for decades and I earned extra pocket money proofreading an M&A 
textbook for practitioners, and I can tell you that the true list was 
long, even 40 years ago...

You only really "need" IPv4 if you operate a network with a lot of 
servers that see inbound traffic from random clients in networks you 
have no control over. So it's in demand primarily from parties that 
predominantly operate servers and are experiencing growth, as well as 
networks that are invested in IPv4 and need more to support their 
growth. But that's a substantial market. I'd expect IPv4 prices to fall 
once the demand for IPv4 subsides, and that's going to be when the 
overwhelming majority of the world runs IPv6. That might be another 5 or 
10 years away - hard to tell. At current growth rates, probably not 20 
though. Not sure what you're projecting as your lifetime ;-)

-- 
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Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz  
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
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