Out of interest, how would this come about?
- Jared
It already happens, more along the lines of "Business Class" vs. "Residential Class".
Ie. for Residential Class, you may get put onto CGNAT, and have no control over that.
While on x level of Business Class, you get to opt out of CGNAT, and potentially even have a
static IP address assigned to your connection.
ISPs are facing ever growing costs to continue providing IPv4 services.
Likely they will eventually have to start passing those costs along to IPv4-dependent customers.
Owen
Could you please be more specific about which costs you are referring to?
It's not like IP transit providers care if they deliver IPv4 or IPv6 bits to you.
- Jared
Have you priced blocks of IPv4 addresses lately?
ISPs expand over time and need more IPs for more customers.
-Randy
Randy Carpenter wrote:
How, exactly, would you propose a company recoup the cost?
-Randy
Randy Carpenter wrote:
>> >> >> When your ISP starts charging $X/Month for legacy protocol support
>> >> >
>> >> > Out of interest, how would this come about?
>> >>
>> >> ISPs are facing ever growing costs to continue providing IPv4 services.
>> > Could you please be more specific about which costs you are referring to?
>> >
>> > It's not like IP transit providers care if they deliver IPv4 or IPv6 bits to
>> > you.
>>
>> Have you priced blocks of IPv4 addresses lately?
> IPv4 address blocks have a fixed one-time cost, not an ongoing $X/month cost.
>
> - JaredHow, exactly, would you propose a company recoup the cost?
There are many options, depending on the commercial relationship between ISP and customer.
The ISP may simply charge a single one-time fee per IPv4.
The customer may choose to bring their own IPv4 blocks as many BGP customers do.
The ISP may chose not to charge separately per IPv4, as having those IPs enables them to charge $Y/month for Internet service.
And so on and so forth.
Furthermore IPv4 addresses do not wear out. IPs can be reused upon customer churn and excess blocks can be sold, if need be.
- Jared
From an RIR perhaps, but when demand changes for your available pool,
what happens downstream?
When you rent servers from providers, unless you bring your
own address space, the invoice includes the cost of one or more IPv4
addresses, often with the option to rent additional IPv4 addresses on a
per month basis. Just this week I received notice of a $2/VM
price increase from one provider. They stated "demand for IP
address has caused a shortage and increased prices".
John
also, you know… it’s a monetizable asset now, so … why not just charge rent? 
I mean, in like 12 months you can pay for 2 ips if you charge 2$/month / ip.
It is not a fixed one-time cost ... because if your users are gamers behind PSP, Sony is blocking IPv4 ranges behind CGN. So, you keep rotating your addresses until all then are blocked, then you need to transfer more IPv4 addresses ...
So under this perspective, in many cases it makes more sense to NOT invest in CGN, and use that money to transfer up-front more IPv4 addresses at once, you will get a better price than if you transfer them every few months.
Regards,
Jordi
@jordipalet
El 30/3/22, 18:38, "NANOG en nombre de Jared Brown" <nanog-bounces+jordi.palet=consulintel.es@nanog.org en nombre de nanog-isp@mail.com> escribió:
Randy Carpenter wrote:
When your ISP starts charging $X/Month for legacy protocol support
Out of interest, how would this come about?
ISPs are facing ever growing costs to continue providing IPv4 services.
Could you please be more specific about which costs you are referring to?
Costs of address acquisition
Costs of CGNAT systems in lieu of address acquisition costs
Costs of increasing support calls due to IPv4 life support measures in other networks.
etc.
It's not like IP transit providers care if they deliver IPv4 or IPv6 bits to you.
True, but adding customers requires additional addresses at some point. IPv6 addresses are cheap compared to IPv4 addresses.
Owen
A growing number of providers are charging $x/IPv4 address/month as a way to recoup that cost.
I expect that trend will continue.
While it may (MAY[1]) be a one-time fixed costs to the provider, it’s not likely to stay that way for the customers going forward.
Owen
[1] Modulo RIR fees and the possibility that due to capital constraints, said ISP may have chosen to lease addresses rather than purchase them.
Hi, Owen:
The EzIP addresses (the 240/4 netblock) are proposed to be treated as "natural resources" without a price tag (or, "free") following the old-fashioned PSTN discipline, instead of "personal properties" for auction according to the current Internet way.
Regards,
Abe (2022-04-01 09:35)
As an aside, all this demonstrates quite well one of the impediments to accelerated IPv6 adoption:
None of these costs apply to parties not growing or ones that are only growing withing their existing IPv4 allocation.
The status quo does not promote IPv6 adoption, which is obviously a problem since transitioning to IPv6-only requires all parties to be aboard.
I'll even add that there is a perverse incentive for ISPs and others to delay IPv6 adoption in certain segments. As there is a scarcity of IPv4, ISPs can charge a premium for access to IPv4 addresses, something you cannot do with IPv6. Furthermore as IPv4 blocks are acting like an appreciating asset, there is both an incentive to acquire more, regardless of need, and to hoard what you have, even if you don't need it. For cloud providers your IPv4 blocks become your moat.
- Jared
Hi, Jared:
1) " For cloud providers your IPv4 blocks become your moat. ": It is interesting that your closing statement summarizing the current tactics of keeping customers captive and fending against competition mirrors well with the "Towers of Babel" metaphor of the ancient days mentioned by Christian a couple days' ago. That is, the cyberspace "Towers" are controlled virtually by multi-national businesses that extend far beyond conventional geographical / political borders. It exceeds the comprehension of most people. So, we must realize this situation and stop promoting such.
Regards,
Abe (2022-04-04 09:53)
I would expect the trend to become that ISP's refuse to accommodate 3rd party vendors shenanigans to the point where it hampers their operations or to the point where it cost them more to do so.
$ISP_1 refuses to accommodate Sony’s shenanigans…
Three possible outcomes:
The three possible outcomes assume status quo is maintained.
However, if ISP A makes a business decision to not accommodate 3rd party shenanigans and modifies policies accordingly, then we have a new equilibrium.
Outcome 1 is maintained: Customer churns off ISP A. Everybody wins.
Outcome 2 is no longer a single outcome, but rather several:
a. Customer is upsold to gaming package which includes a static IP.
b. Customer returns Playstation and buys Xbox instead.
c. Customer declines gaming package, but continues to bother customer service. Customer is directed to 3rd party customer support. Further customer contact is handled via self service portals and other low cost customer service channels.
d. Customer terminates contract and goes offline.
Outcome 3 is resolved by ISP A telling returning customers that service at that address is only available if ordered together with the gaming package.
All of this, of course, becomes an effective non-issue if both $ISP and Sony deploy IPv6 and get rid of the stupid NAT tricks.
Well yes...
... but why would Sony do that when they have so conveniently externalized all costs?
- Jared
There is also Customer contacts ACCC in Australia and complains that Sony is not supplying a working product and Sony gets fined and instructed to change their rules about customers behind CGNATs.