Microsoft Buys 600k Internet Addresses

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
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What the heck is Microsoft up to? The software giant just spent $7.5M buying a block of about 667K IPv4 web addresses from Nortel. The big question seems to be what Microsoft is planning to do with the purchase. The sale will be finalized April 26th.

The company outbid four other unnamed firms to get the valuable addresses, which identify unique computers on the Internet, like Web servers.
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video streaming, more xbl servers (they currently rent backbone attacked databases from Level3), world control... oops :p
 
Probably northing that we will ever read about. Its not like 600,000 is a lot of addresses, it could be for some thing as insignificant as wanting more addresses before there is a read freeze.
 
IPV4 has ran out of addresses so this is probably ensuring they have addresses in the future if IPV6 takes a long time to become mainstream
 
I can answer this question. We're out of IPv4 addresses. ARIN just denied my company addresses and suggested we utilize 80% before they'll give us more or purchasing blocks from another company. Microsoft probably is probably under utilizing as well and decided to buy more space before it gets expensive.

Were converting some of our enterprise networks to IPv6 next month and stagger the rest through the year.
 
Microsoft has been building a few datacentres lately. It might be for that, cloud computing or even IPTV services.
 
I remember in 2001 when it was said that v6 would be enabled within two years...

Still have a while before v6 becomes the defacto standard.
 
Jabroni31169 said:
I remember in 2001 when it was said that v6 would be enabled within two years...

Still have a while before v6 becomes the defacto standard.
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You could say the same for the HDTV digital switch. It was suppose to be pushed, then got delayed another year, and so forth till we finally have it now.
 
I'm still trying to figure out how this was legal. Like phone numbers, I didn't think you could sell IP addresses. From what I've read, ARIN kinda played middle man to broker this deal. That seams wrong. The IPs should have went back in the pool if the new owners could not provide proof they needed the IPs.

Let the day of black market IP addresses begin!
 
TwiceOver said:
I'm still trying to figure out how this was legal. Like phone numbers, I didn't think you could sell IP addresses. From what I've read, ARIN kinda played middle man to broker this deal. That seams wrong. The IPs should have went back in the pool if the new owners could not provide proof they needed the IPs.

Let the day of black market IP addresses begin!
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You sure you can't sell phone numbers? My brother in law is working on a law suit between two companies over a 1-800 number so I assume they can be sold/bought. :confused:
 
TwiceOver said:
I'm still trying to figure out how this was legal. Like phone numbers, I didn't think you could sell IP addresses. From what I've read, ARIN kinda played middle man to broker this deal. That seams wrong. The IPs should have went back in the pool if the new owners could not provide proof they needed the IPs.

Let the day of black market IP addresses begin!
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Nope it's fine. ARIN's not reclaiming anything and no they don't consider it their job to manage your ip space for you. See the problem is you wanna build for future capacity in all aspects of your business. Being at 80% or more of IP's is pretty scary same goes for transport If I have fiber channels at 80% even just during peak traffic ties thats a serious problem, but that's apparently cut off for ARIN or some where there abouts.

The most likely scenario is that Microsoft has a large block advertised out somewhere, doesn't wanna move it to better utilize the space and ARIN told them to eat it and redistribute or go buy it somewhere else. So they went fishing and found space at Nortel.

Nortel as we all know is using about 5 ips for those 5 last guys holding up the "were closed" sign so that money is worth a lot to them than the IP space.
 
TwiceOver said:
I'm still trying to figure out how this was legal. Like phone numbers, I didn't think you could sell IP addresses. From what I've read, ARIN kinda played middle man to broker this deal. That seams wrong. The IPs should have went back in the pool if the new owners could not provide proof they needed the IPs.

Let the day of black market IP addresses begin!
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what do you think ISPs do? They are given a block and they turn around and sell them to customers.
 
Seems like a good deal to me. 11 bucks for an IP doesn't seem that bad to me.
 
munkle said:
You sure you can't sell phone numbers? My brother in law is working on a law suit between two companies over a 1-800 number so I assume they can be sold/bought. :confused:
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It might have changed, but some guy tried to sell the infamous 867-5309 on ebay. It got up to tens of thousands in bids until AT&T stepped in. You are leasing your number from your provider. YOU don't own it.

piscian18 said:
Nope it's fine. ARIN's not reclaiming anything and no they don't consider it their job to manage your ip space for you. See the problem is you wanna build for future capacity in all aspects of your business. Being at 80% or more of IP's is pretty scary same goes for transport If I have fiber channels at 80% even just during peak traffic ties thats a serious problem, but that's apparently cut off for ARIN or some where there abouts.

The most likely scenario is that Microsoft has a large block advertised out somewhere, doesn't wanna move it to better utilize the space and ARIN told them to eat it and redistribute or go buy it somewhere else. So they went fishing and found space at Nortel.

Nortel as we all know is using about 5 ips for those 5 last guys holding up the "were closed" sign so that money is worth a lot to them than the IP space.
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ARIN doesn't manage YOUR IP space, but it does manage the available pool. Still seems fishy.

Exavior said:
what do you think ISPs do? They are given a block and they turn around and sell them to customers.
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They don't turn around and sell them, they lease them to you as a customer. Even the ISP doesn't "OWN" the IPs.
 
Maybe they are trying to control more of the world. With more personal info, they can do a lot of things. MS goes more political.
 
THRESHIN said:
maybe they're hoarding? sell them back at a higher price when we run out?
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I thought about this but at all the MSO meetings I've been to lately everybody seems on board to get IPv6 finished this year. so if they don't resell them soon they'll be worthless.
 
Cloud based Lync servers for voip and video services would be my guess. The Office 365 Suites appear to have some massive resources behind them.
 
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