Why do I want legacy IP address space?
Not all IP addresses are alike…..Consider the following……
Questions: If you have a single ISP then you’re dependent. You have their IP space, what if the service quality drops? Explain this to your VC, business partners and shareholders why your business looks slow or intermittent and you can’t find another ISP with the address space you need.
What if your ISP decided to raise fees and the IPs were now worth $10 each ? They may be using IPs from thier upstream provider and thier rates went up. (This is happening, today).
What if an ISP runs out of space and wants to recall some of your space, because, they can’t get more? After all an ISP that runs out of address space can’t add new customers. (Already, happening).
It takes time building a business presence. Now you realize that you setup your business to be dependent one ISP? Go on call your ISP and tell them you want to announce the address space they provided you with another ISP. Try it. Listen to the long pause. Now, you know you locked in your company. See how long it takes to get permission for that. Most contracts for service prohibit this.
What happens if your ISP is sold to another that felt you were not using the space such that the RIR could review it’s use?
Before you change ISPs, all you can do is complain. Once you change, you now look to your IT team and they have to renumber server IP addresses, LAN segments, VPN devices, etc. All time consuming and cumbersome tasks. Especially, if your online apps involve a mix of hosted and owned servers.
ISP business can be volatile. Look at the mergers that take place due to bankruptcy reorganizations. During transitions those networks suffer and so do your packets.
Solution: With your address space you control, you have choices. You are in control of your presence, not your ISP. With your own IP space it’s easy to have more than one ISP. You can run Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), if you have the router and the people that know how. However, there is an easier way. Simply provide both ISPs a copy of the Letter Of Authorization (LOA) and ask them to announce your space. Both, will announce it. When one ISP becomes poor in quality, you simply tell them to stop announcing your address space. Almost immediately everything is back to normal. Fifteen minutes later all the routers on the Internet drop the path of the bad ISP. It’s as if there was no problem at all. When their maintance window is over or their problems are resolved they can begin announcing again for you. Gee, you’re clever.