[menog] Microsoft offered $7.5M for Nortel's IPv4

[Erik Bais]

Hi Bill, 

> ARIN's policies are not precisely identical to RIPE's, but both are governed by RFC2050, which states that all IP addresses must be allocated based 
> upon need.  That is, the recipient of the addresses must be able to demonstrate that they need them, and will be able to use them efficiently.

> While it would be allowable under policy for Nortel (or in this case, the bankruptcy court that's representing their creditors) to transfer the address 
> space to another entity, rather than simply returning it to ARIN, that other entity would have to have already justified to ARIN their need for the 
> address space.

Why would Microsoft pay 7 milj US$ if they could justify to ARIN the need for the address space that they could get for free ?  

I think that is exactly the problem. 

I doubt that they are above the 80% line of their current allocation and can justify that they need for that many IP's within the next 6 months. 

And if they could.. could you explain me why they would pay that kind of money for it, if they could get it for 'free' from ARIN ? ARIN would still have a /13 (and some ) if they have gave a valid justification.

Regards,
Erik Bais