Posted by: Eric Siegel
I see that Mike put up a blog post about IPv6 ("And you think 2012 will be a problem...") mentioning that I'm working on a paper about IPv4 address exhaustion and the resulting need to be prepared for IPv6-only Internet users.
An important consideration for all enterprises is that, starting in 2009, some Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) began to formalize mechanisms for the transfer of address blocks subject to RIR approval. That allows the appearance of a market in address blocks.
The address block market will peak as the IPv4 address shortage becomes extreme after 2012, then gradually decline as IPv6 gains popularity. Large blocks of addresses, which had no financial value previously, will need to be inventoried and appear as an enterprise asset. (Larger blocks will be more valuable than an equivalent number of addresses in smaller blocks.) In some cases, enterprises may re-number their internal networks to create large address blocks that can then be sold.
So, if you have no idea how many IPv4 address blocks you own, or which ones are used, the time has arrived for you to start an inventory. IPv4 address blocks will suddenly have financial value, and you might even want to consider selling them in a couple of years to an enterprise that hasn't planned ahead and suddenly needs IPv4 addresses but can't get them from their ISP. (That won't be YOU, of course....)
By the way, you can talk with Mike in person about IPv6 and IPv4 at the upcoming Catalyst Conference in Europe on April 19-22. He'll be there!
If you're interested, here are some of the RIR regulations governing transfer of IPv4 blocks:
RIPE:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-484.html#55
ARIN:
https://www.arin.net/resources/request/transfers.html ("Transfer of released number resources")
http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/attachments/20090406/b8a75e31/attachment.pdf
APNIC:
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