Michel, > > The organization has 800 hosts, all behind NAT (they have PA space, NAT > is there for renumbering ease), and there is only a small fraction of > servers that have one-to-one NAT and therefore require a public IP per > host. In your average 800 hosts network (if such a thing exists) it > turns out that a /26 would have been enough. > > Where's the catch? This organization gets a frac-DS3, and the network > administrator thinks "what the hell, I have 800 hosts and therefore I'll > request 2 class Cs anyway even if I don't need them, it does not cost > more, and who knows if I won't need them later". The organization does > get 512 addresses out of which it really uses 50, but the network > administrator likes seating on a cushion especially if it costs nothing. And in the real world i'm shelling out almost $100 US for barely half a gig of burst transfer and two v4 addresses, from two providers. i have 9 hosts altogether, NATed behind the two gateway machines, which route v6 address space to the remainder of the hosts. But guess what... if i want v4 addresses on all the hosts, i have to shell out almost as much as i am paying for the circuits, with no throughput benefit. At least using the NAT/v6 combo, i can see all of my hosts and use some of their services from part of the public internet (albeit not very much of it). > > IPv4 addresses _are_ a commodity; on cheap markets (home/soho) more > addresses means more money. > And its a sad state of affairs, just like the DNS. Its like we are saying: "Oh yes, yes indeed, the internet is for everyone, regardless of religion, race, creed, financial standing, or ideology, as long as you have a major credit card. If not, bugger off, we dont like your type." > On more expensive links (above T1) it still > means money but that money is washed out in the bottom line. When home > DS-3s are available for $79/mo, expect to pay more money if you need > more than a handful of addresses. See above. Whereas I have a free v6 /48, as i probably would have a free v4 allocation if i were in the game around the time i was getting my first trs-80 from santa. > Pre-CIDR blocks sell on eBay, this is a gray market that I would not > recommend going into but it does happen anyway. When IPv4 addresses > become scarce, we will find out that lots of people that have stockpiled > them would be ready to let half of their block go if there is a sound > financial reason to do so. How does one go about routing something like that? > > IPv4 address will never run out. They will simply be available to > whoever has money to pay for them. > No, but market pressures cited above will render v4 obsolete quicker. Scott > Michel. > > > sleekfreak pirate broadcast world tour 2002-3 live from the pirate hideout http://sleekfreak.ath.cx:81/