[governance] IPv4 allocation (US Gov version)

Sat Sep 3 14:07:13 EDT 2005

Hi McTim and Milton,

NB. For the non geek it's helpful to explain the terms.
IPv4 addresses are 32 bits. The set of addresses having the same upper (leftmost) 8 bits, used to be called a "class A". Now it's called a "/8". In the following I'll just call it a "block".

There are 16 777 216 addresses (2**24) in any such block.

There are 256 blocks (of addresses) in the total v4 address space (about 4 .3 billion). The table published by IANA <http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space> shows which blocks have been allocated and, if so, to which institution.

On Fri, 02 Sep 2005 09:43:29 -0400, Milton Mueller wrote:

>The USG comment's method of accounting probably does not count the allocations  made prior to the creation of the RIRs. In other words it excludes the prior allocation of around 80(? - just a guess, don't have access to the information here) /8's and concentrates only on what has happened since, say 1999 or so.  

Possible. Actually I am not trying to explain out the US Gov arithmetics, it's their job. Rather I am interested in the factual "cumulative IPv4 address allocations", as they state.

On Thu, 1 Sep 2005 19:27:47 +0300, McTim wrote:

>ARIN up until recently allocated and assigned resources to all of
Latin/South America/Carib and Africa south of the Equator.

>Up until quite recently the RIPE NCC allocated and assigned resources to all of Africa nouth of the Equator.

>Perhaps this is where your calculations differ.

LACNIC got its first block in Nov 02, and ARIN got one block in Aug 02. ARIN's allocation did not change. LACNIC got a second block in Apr 03. I don't have older tables to see if this block was transferred from ARIN or taken off unallocated space, as seems to be common practice for extensions.

AFRINIC got its only block in Apr 05. It came from reserved space without altering RIPE's allocation.

Thus, those new RIR's increased by a mere 3% the total amount of allocated blocks, without changing significantly the geographical distribution pattern. This cannot account for the 40% gap with the US Gov figures.

>Yes, and when the filed next to the specific /8 says "Various Registries"   This address space seems to be pre-RIR space (May 93).

>Did you count those or exclude them?  It amounts to 704 Million IP addresses.

That's the real bone. I counted them as USA allocations, because there is no mention of RIR or any other institutions. They total 50 blocks. That's a huge lot, more than RIPE, APNIC, LACNIC, and AFRINIC lumped together (40 blocks). To me it smacks of a walled garden.

I checked a sampling of 340 addresses allocated to Various Registries. They look like a random sampling of site names as found routinely in the internet. See examples further below. Even though the names may be registered under about any gTLD or ccTLD, the addresses do not belong to the RIR's allocations. Who got these addresses and how ? Tracing the routes would reveal more details on their network attachment, but that's for further study.

>Accurate counting of which IPs are used where is very difficult, as (for example) IPs that RIPE NCC gives to a European satellitte provider are used to provide connectivity (or are further assigned) here in Africa.  These are then counted in your (and the US) numbers as European addresses when in fact they are used in Africa.

Yes. Which addresses are used and by whom is a big black hole. But this is an entirely different issue. For the moment I am concerned with allocation, not use, and no deeper visibility than the IANA allocation.

Just to play with various stats methodologies I ran a few more accounting methods. x % means x % of the total of allocated blocks.

Table 1.
This table was in my previous posting.
Various Registries are counted as USA allocations.

71.7%  North America (ARIN + USA orgs)
12.7%  Europe (RIPE + Eur orgs)
 9.8%  Asia Pacific (APNIC + Jap org)
 2.3%  South America (LACNIC)
 0.6%  Africa (AFRINIC)
 2.9%  Miscellaneous (international)

Table 2.
Various Registries are not counted.

61.7%  North America (ARIN + USA orgs)
17.2%  Europe (RIPE + Eur orgs)
13.3%  Asia Pacific (APNIC + Jap org)
 3.1%  South America (LACNIC)
 0.8%  Africa (AFRINIC)
 3.9%  Miscellaneous (international)

Table 3.
Various Registries are distributed to geographical regions, with the ratios observed presently in the RIR's allocations.

54.6%  North America (ARIN + USA orgs)
20.8%  Europe (RIPE + Eur orgs)
16.7%  Asia Pacific (APNIC + Jap org)
 4.0%  South America (LACNIC)
 1.0%  Africa (AFRINIC)
 2.8%  Miscellaneous (international)

Table 4.
This the US Gov table.
http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/pc3/contributions/co35.pdf

32%  North America
31%  Europe
33%  Asia Pacific
 3%  South America
 1%  Africa

Now, anyone can guess what is factual. Cheers.

- - -
examples of addresses allocated to "Various Registries"

128.113.128.75 #www.alumni.rpi.edu
129.33.51.74 #cadillac.com
130.186.88.2 #sitesolutions.it
131.103.218.111 #mail15b.boca15-verio.com
132.239.240.58 #starfire.ucsd.edu
133.11.96.73 #mtl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
134.179.112.15 #gw.dec.state.ny.us
135.209.208.20 #attws.com
136.199.8.220 #uni-trier.de
137.236.223.7 #xmr3.com
138.89.242.16 #pool-138-89-242-16.atc.east.verizon.net
139.175.54.240 #tpts8.seed.net.tw
140.174.9.102 #emailaccount.com
141.150.47.6 #pool-141-150-47-6.nwrk.east.verizon.net
142.217.61.212 #lt-61-212.telebecinternet.net
143.166.83.230 #dell.com
144.135.25.159 #mta05ps.bigpond.com
145.229.156.178 #onlineni.net
146.101.249.107 #jenniofvegas.com
147.102.1.1 #softlab.ntua.gr
148.221.109.234 #dup-148-221-109-234.prodigy.net.mx
149.174.130.216 #aol.com
150.143.103.54 #coolbreeze.ebay.sun.com
151.197.9.217 #pool-151-197-9-217.phil.east.verizon.net
152.104.8.2 #hk.com
154.32.107.132 #seri.co.uk
155.138.1.54 #svsu.edu
156.27.8.202 #ftp.com
157.157.130.52 #erna.is rup.simnet.is
158.169.134.70 #www.europa.eu.int
159.148.95.5 #tvnet.lv
160.79.226.74 #fee.ourdealsgalore.com

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