How much is an IPv4 address worth?

Apparently $11.25:
Microsoft Spends $7.5M on 666K Nortel IPv4 Addresses | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

This news is a few months old but I didn't see it on TE. At that per-unit cost, a class B would go for $737K, and a class A would be a whopping $188M! With the rapidly diminishing IPv4 address space, is this a sign of what's to come?

Anyone with a large chunk of unused space should seriously consider migrating to IPv6, getting a small allocation of IPv4 addresses for the stuff that actually needs it, and selling the rest. You're going to have to migrate to IPv6 anyway, so if you can expedite the process you can possibly make it worth your while.

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Comments

Priston

Tell that to my ISP

mikedisd2

Huh? I thought they ran out of IPv4 addresses a few months back.

jamesleecoleman

mikedisd2 wrote: »

Huh? I thought they ran out of IPv4 addresses a few months back.

I was thinking the same thing...

earweed

The article said the last of the IPV4 addresses were handed out in February. These addresses were bought by M$ from a company who had a ton of them on hand. They were previously assigned,

headshot

I've heard that there are a alot of universities with class A address blocks that waste the majority of their address space (unused).

Armor149

headshot wrote: »

I've heard that there are a alot of universities with class A address blocks that waste the majority of their address space (unused).

Talk about a great way to add some exta funding.

mikej412

headshot wrote: »

I've heard that there are a alot of universities with class A address blocks that waste the majority of their address space (unused).

I think you can count the number of Universities with class A addresses on 1 finger -- MIT.

18.0.0.0/8

MentholMoose

IANA has no more IPv4 space, it's all been delegated to RIRs as of a few months ago:
https://www.arin.net/announcements/2011/20110203.html

IPv4 is not really any more scarce, it just means that RIRs (like ARIN) can't get more space from IANA. If your RIR runs out, that will be more of a problem. However, there is a perception of scarcity, and eventually there will actually be true scarcity, so it's possible that IPv4 space will become valuable and a gray market will appear (normally you are supposed to get IPv4 space from your RIR). Microsoft's decision to buy Nortel's space may be just the beginning.

mikej412 wrote: »

I think you can count the number of Universities with class A addresses on 1 finger -- MIT.

18.0.0.0/8

Stanford used to have a class A but they gave it away in 1999. I suppose they could regret that decision if IPv4 space really becomes valuable. However, many (if not most, at least in the US) universities have a class B range, and at US $11.25 per IP, that is still some decent money.

MentholMoose

And here's the list of IPv4 allocations from IANA.
IANA IPv4 Address Space Registry

MIT appears to be the only university with a class A, though there is Merit which provides network connectivity to Michigan universities (e.g. MSU is 35.8.0.0-35.10.255.255).

lordy

Well, as far as I know the rules of RIPE (the european RIR) you never actually own IP addresses. They are allocated to you and you are expected to return the allocation if it is no longer needed.

I think it's quite possible that we will see the withdrawl of unused/legacy allocations in the near future. But it will sure be interesting to see how it will all work out once all RIRs are empty.

MentholMoose

lordy wrote: »

Well, as far as I know the rules of RIPE (the european RIR) you never actually own IP addresses. They are allocated to you and you are expected to return the allocation if it is no longer needed.

Yeah, I thought that is how it works, which is why I'm surprised that Nortel could sell their IPv4 space to MS.