IP addresses are a scarce resource today. Try getting a /16 allocation (what used to be a class B). There are politics in the process already. Addresses will not be easily 'transferable.' The IETF is discussing a 'Best Current Practices' document that talks about address portability. Basically, it can't happen, because the routers only have so much memory, and the routers at the core of the internet can't keep in memory how to reach every one; there needs to be aggregation. The only feasible aggregation seems to be provider based, ie, MCI, Alternet, and other large ISPs get blocks of addresses. They give them to smaller companies, like got.net, which gives them to customers. The result? The core routers have a few more years. Lastly, 32 bit addressing is going away. IPv6 offers 128 bit address space, and (hopefully) much more efficient allocation, as well as such useful things as hooks for automatic renumbering of address space. Adam Alan Olsen wrote: | >Markets for IP Addresses | > | >The 32-bit numbers used for Internet addressing and routing are a | >limited resource. As this resource becomes scarcer, political | >considerations are likely to creep into allocation decisions made | >through existing administrative processes, leading to suboptimal | >allocations. By granting transferable property rights to addresses, | >allocation decisions can be removed from the political realm into the | >economic realm, so that addresses are allocated to those who value them | >most. This project seeks to develop consensus in the Internet community | >for a move to market-based allocation, and investigates alternative | >designs for an electronic market to coordinate the exchange of IP | >addresses. | | This proposal bothers me. I do not see any positive results from this | proposal. (Or at least the negatives will far outweigh the positive.) | | Here is what I see as the results of such a plan... | | Getting an IP address will become prohibitivly expensive except for the | largest megacorps. Instead of solving the limitations of the current | system, this plan will cause people to "invest" in IP addresses in the hope | that the price will go up. IP addresses will become part of a corporation's | invenstment portfolio. This will result in less usage of IP addresses, not -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume