RE: IP Address Costs $2,500-$20,000?

[Jim Fleming <JimFleming@doorstep.unety.net>]

This might be an interesting discussion for the Antitrust list.

The ARIN evolution was "sold" to the Internet community as
a way to separate the IP allocation issues from the domain
name issues. Unfortunately, they can not be easily separated
because with IP allocations come domain name delegations
in the IN-ADDR.ARPA zone.

Just because these domain names do not have the marketing
sizzle of .COM names, they are just as important (or more so)
to an ISP or large user.

The U.S. Government, via the NSF, has handed a small group
of Internet insiders (from NSI, the InterNIC) another gift on a
silver platter. People seem to think that everything is OK
because ARIN is declared to be a non-profit corporation with
the IRS. As some have pointed out, this does not matter
because large expenses (like executive perks) can be used
to drain off money so there is no profit.

The larger issue is that the U.S. Government has helped to
create yet another monopoly. The prices were "fixed" based
on the European and Asia/Pacific cartel pricing. People are
only now starting to realize what has happened. Fortunately,
the recent Green Paper issued by the U.S. Department of
Commerce and the White House, proposes to re-open these
debates.

The experts and concerned citizens in this Anti-trust forum
could really help the general public by looking into these
matters. Some of the Internet leaders joked that they were
able to sneak ARIN past the U.S. Government as the domain
name debates raged. We are all fortunate that the people
at the DOJ, DOC and in the White House were not fooled.

Only the fools at the NSF seem to have taken the bait. They
have a long track record for this. Eventually the Congress
needs to remove some of the $3.5 billion dollar annual budget
of the NSF, which they continue to use to manipulate these
information age markets by funding non-profit or academic
organizations who do nothing but set up taxation programs
that consumers must use because there is no competition
or the potential competition is discouraged by the NSF clout
that is used to shape the marketplace.


On Monday, February 16, 1998 9:09 PM, Walter Wright[SMTP:wright@hal-pc.org] wrote:
@> Is it official that new allocations of IP Addresses now costs $2,500 to
@> $20,000 US$?
@>
@> Does that also create a market for an allocation of an existing
@> allocation?
@>
@> Does $2,500 price apply to Class C Addresses and $20,000 to Class A?
@>
@> If these are correct figures, then does that mean the USGov has created
@> a potential
@> Internet market worth  10 trillion dollars just for IP numbers by
@> allowing monopoly privileges to ARIN?    ( est. $2,500X4,000,000,000
@> potential 32bit IP numbers).
@>
@> Is there going to be something like a stock exchange or tulip bulb
@> exchange for IPAs?     Will some numbers be worth more than others?
@>
@> As a prospective assignee of an IP address someday-- these are serious
@> questions. Would appreciate any comments from this list of knowledgeable
@> persons about this note.
@
@
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Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation
IBC, Tortola, BVI