Dear members,

In my update at RIPE 80[1], I mentioned that we would like to decommission the IPv4 Transfer Listing Service unless there there were strong objections. So far, we have heard no requests to keep the service.

In case anyone is unfamiliar with this, the listing service allows members to offer/request IPv4 prefixes for transfer:
https://www.ripe.net/manage-ips-and-asns/resource-transfers-and-mergers/listing

While there are currently 681,000 IPv4 addresses "offered" on the listing service, when we attempted to match LIRs that had used the service with those that went on to make a transfer, we couldn't find much of a correlation. Of the 1,969 LIRs that transferred resources in our service region last year, only 76 had posted on the listing service and it's not clear whether the service actually connected the offering/receiving parties for these cases.

As the listing service is reaching the end of its lifespan, a full reimplementation would be needed to continue supporting it. Given that the listing service does not appear to be adding much in terms of value, spending development time on this does seem like a good use of members' funds.

We are therefore planning to discontinue the IPv4 Transfer Listing Service on 22 June. If you have strong objections to this, please let us know or share feedback on members-discuss.

Regards

Felipe Victolla Silveira
Chief Operations Officer
RIPE NCC

[1] RIPE NCC Operational Update:
https://ripe80.ripe.net/wp-content/uploads/presentations/28-Operational-Update-RIPE-80-to-upload.pdf