First, why shouldn't ISPs sell IP addresses? I'm not saying that they should
-- I just am not clear as to why this troubles you.Second, assuming for the sake
of argument that it is not desireable to have ISPs sell IP addresses, you need to
find some way to get around that. I don't think you can do it contractually
-- ISPs will find ways to skirt any rules you make.
One realistic to prevent the
sale of IP address is to make IP addresses essentially valueless by giving them to
anyone who asks (or at least a lot more people than they are given to now).
I am
all for this. I do not think that ISPs (and to be more specific we are really
only talking about LARGE ISPs -- small ones get IP address allocations form their
upstream providers) should have excusive rights to IP addresses.
Currently,
if you wanted to get your "own" IP addresses that your ISP did not control, it would
be difficult and expensive -- due to ARIN's policies. I do not think this is
how it should be.
But, there are reasons for the current IP address allocation
system. The primary reason accoring to ARIN is to prevent fragmentation of
routing tables. According to ARIN, global routing tables now have about 60,000
entries, and this number is large enough that it is becoming problematic for some
routers.
The more people you give IP addresses to, the more IP space fragmentation
you have, and then the more router entries you need.
The only way that this is
going to cease to be a concern is to either a) change the way routing protocols work
to decrease load on the routers, or b) have everyone start using routers with a lot
more capacity.
But obviously this is a complicated issue that may take years to
resolve, since we can't tell everyone to go out and by new routers, or easily adopt
a new routing protocol becuse of all the legacy routers.
Anybody have any thoughts
on other ways to resolve the problem?