Nick, Even if there will be a market to buy Ipv4 address space, it will not be able to satisfy the address needs of the bigger broadband providers. (ETNO or other) Hoping that a IPv4 maket will give you the required addresses to continue to assign an Ipv4 address to each (new) individual subscriber is wishfull thinking. So we (as an industry) have to find a cost effective solution to consume (much) less than 1 IPv4 address per broadband user between now and exhaustion time. (Ipv6 or NAT or other) Migrating existing customers to a new solution/service is not easy or cheap (especially if they have to replace their CPE). I suppose that this solution (IPv6) will be apllied first to the growth (new users) and later to migrate existing users. Marc
The only way that this chaotic situation could come to pass would be if many ISPs of a significant size, started to buy and sell IP addresses. ETNO contains many of the largest ISPs in Europe and they say that they will not do this.
Michael, I really don't believe for a moment that ETNO members are going to keep away from the IPv4 market when it comes into being, regardless of the current ETNO position in these times of plenty. While you and other people like you and me are - to one degree or another - against the whole notion of a market, if a shortage of IPv4 address space starts taking its toll on a company's financials, the decision to purchase more address space will be taken away from the technical departments and assumed by the business development departments (and perhaps your boards of management/directors) in your companies.
__________________________________________________ Marc Neuckens belgacom Manager Expert Center IP & Internet ITN/IRO/Remote Network Operations(RNO)/ECI Lebeaustraat 2 B-1000 Brussel Tel.: +32-2-514.43.66 E-mail: <marc.neuckens@belgacom.be> __________________________________________________ **** DISCLAIMER **** http://www.belgacom.be/maildisclaimer