Earlier this week Akamai, the world’s largest content distribution network (CDN), which supplies content for thousands of websites announced that they will be launching their IPv6 services in April. This is another great milestone in IPv6 deployment for the content side of the transaction. Still missing and moving much slower is the access side of the network, the broadband providers. While some providers such as Comcast and Time Warner have announced trials and some limited production services ,their roll outs are still very limited. Until the access networks have millions of IPv6 enabled subscribers, the total amount of IPv6 traffic will be very small.
IANA Contract renewal – any effect on the IP address world?
On March 10th, the US Department of Commerce, through the NTIA, released a statement that they were cancelling the RFP for the renewal of the IANA contract. ICANN was seen as the “shoe-in” to receive this contract but according to various reports the process was cancelled because the USG felt the bid did not meet the specifications of the expanded RFP. There is plenty of speculation about what is happening, specifically around the expansion of the global Top Level Domains (gTLDs), but only time will tell how the contract renewal plays out. As a result of the cancellation, the existing contract with ICANN for the IANA services was renewed for 6 months presumably to start the process over or to step back from the current structure and look at some new structure.
So what does this have to do with IP addresses, isn’t ICANN all about DNS? Well to the largest extent ICANN’s main coordination has been about the DNS, but the last “N” in ICANN has always been “Numbers.”
What does this potentially mean for the RIRs? Since most of the RIRs were formed before ICANN existed, there has always been a bit of an arms length relationship between the RIRs and ICANN. The current relationship is governed by an MOU that was signed in 2004 between ICANN and the NRO. Under the current agreement the NRO acts as the ICANN ASO – Address Supporting Organization. To date, the role of the ASO has been limited largely to certifying global IP number policies (which direct IANA to perform functions related to IP numbers) and appointing two seats to the ICANN board. Does this open an opportunity for the RIRs & NRO to part ways from ICANN and move forward by allowing the NRO to become a global coordinating body? Or is this just another hurdle in the development of “Internet Governance”?
Additional Commentary:
- Department of Commerce Cancels IANA Contract RFP
- ICANN and the NTIA need to come clean about the IANA application
- NTIA plays chicken with the IANA contract
- NTIA says ICANN “does not meet the requirements” for IANA renewal
- US Government Extends ICANN’s Mandate to Manage IANA for Six Months
- US Loses confidence in ICANN
- ICANN Falls Short on IANA Contract Requirements
ARIN publishes commentary on transfers via bankruptcy
ARIN has published a commentary written by its legal counsel and two affiliates regarding the transfer of IPv4 addresses in the ARIN region. The article, published in the Bloomberg BNA’s Bankruptcy Law Reporter, outlines the contract language that ARIN suggests buyers and sellers of IPv4 addresses use in their contracts to ensure a smooth and expedient transaction.
The commentary certainly outlines ARIN’s point of view of the legal and contract issues which exist regarding the transfers. While some (e.g. legacy address holders) likely will disagree with some of the assertions in the commentary, this commentary does lay out ARIN’s stance, such as IP addresses are not property but “interest in the registration right to IP Numbers and the IP Numbers.” While some organizations might choose to use the courts to assert alternate methods of transfer, those entities who generally would like a more expedient transfer process will likely benefit from following the advice contained within the article.
ARIN: Suggested Guidance for Bankruptcy Trustees, Debtors-in-Possession, and Receivers
Milton Mueller of the Internet Governance Project has also published on his blog a response to this guide.
2011 IP address usage statistics
Geoff Huston has recently published on his website his annual look at IP address usage in the various regions of the world.
A few notes from the report:
- With the exhaustion of the IPv4 pool in the APNIC region, the total number of IPv4 addresses allocated declined from the previous year. In 2011, 201 million addresses were allocated compared with 248 million in 2010.
- A substantial “run on the bank” occurred as the APNIC pool depleted in 2011. The number of addresses jumped from an average of 2.3 million addresses per week in 2010 to 6.9 million in the first 4 months of 2011.
- Geoff’s RIR exhaustion model still predicts a depletion of the RIPE IPv4 pool in mid-2012. ARIN’s IPv4 pool is currently expected to last until around the end of 2013.
Google & Others Announce Launch Date of IPv6 Production Services
Google today via their official blog announced that they will be launching production IPv6 services on June 6, 2012 as part of the “World IPv6 Launch”.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/ipv6-countdown-to-launch.html
Zdnet is reporting that other large content providers including Facebook, Bing, and Yahoo have also committed to June 6th as a formal launch date. Now all we need is the access layer (broadband providers) to start providing service and we might begin to see some serious movement toward IPv6.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-google-bing-yahoo-to-enable-ipv6-on-june-6-2012/7526