While doing some research on DSL connection back in the UK, I noticed the following pricing table
| 1 IP Address | FREE |
| 8 IP Address | FREE |
| 16 IP Address | £50.00 |
| 32 IP Address | £75.00 |
| 64 IP Address | £100.00 |
| 128 IP Address | £125.00 |
| 256 IP Address | £150.00 |
(For non-UK readers, £100 is approximately $180.)
Now, IPv6 certainly increases the supply of addresses, and is catching on in Asia. But the artificial scarcity of IP addresses from IPv4 (and the governance mechanism that allocates them via ISPs rather than directly to users) is creating a big economic disincentive to any replacement technology. As I've noted before, merely increasing supply doesn't necessarily mean your ISP will hand over more if you have no alternative source.
Perhaps to become successfully adopted across the globe there needs to be a new governance mechanism for IPv6 that turns the economic tables? (And isn't it about time an economist was a mandatory fixture for standards bodies?)
Posted by Martin Geddes at 5:11 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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