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Amazon Web Services IPv4 Estate Now Worth $4.5 Billion

HairyLeg

ULTIMATE Member
AWS grew its IPv4 estate with an additional 27 million IP addresses to now owning 128 Million IPv4 addresses. At a value of $35 per IPv4 address, the total value of AWS’ IPv4 estate is ~4.5 Billion dollars. An increase of $2 billion

 
The valuation aspect here is tricky, as they need those IPv4s, so they can't just sell that on. Instead, they'll be using them until such time as IPv6 take-up is sufficiently mature, but by then IPv4 addresses may not be needed and would have less value - at least that's what people assume is the end-goal (full adoption).
 
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AWS are about to charge for in-use IPV4 addresses too, which they currently don't - looks like they really want to cut down on their usage (finally?)

 
Amazon announced in August that they would start charging customers for the use of IPv4 addresses.

The linked article states quite clearly..

So, how much money will AWS make from this new IPv4 charge? The significant variable here is how many IP addresses are used at any given time by AWS customers. Let’s explore a few scenarios, starting with a very conservative estimate, say 10% of what is published in their IPv4 JSON is in use for a year. That’s 7.3 Million IPv4 addresses x $43.80, almost $320 Million a year. At 25% usage, that’s nearly $800 Million a year. And at 31% usage, that’s a billion dollars!
 
looks like they really want to cut down on their usage (finally?)

The opposite appears to be the case, the intention looks to be making a lot of money on their customers continuing to use of IPv4 and by growing their estate only helps improve their future income.

Its a rent seeking business decision not a future sales asset.
 
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The opposite appears to be the case, the intention looks to be making a lot of money on their customers continuing to use of IPv4 and by growing their estate only helps improve their future income.
Both can be true. We're definitely reevaluating a lot of our usage.
 
Valuing ownership of something where you hold lots of a rare commodity is very difficult. If Amazon decided to sell all their IP4s then suddenly they wouldn't be rare any more and the price would plummet.

Whilst the price per IP4 might be valid right now, the extrapolation to the value of all of their IP4s is complete rubbish.

Also note that IP4s have a time limited value - eventually they will be valueless - it would be interesting to see what value over time profile is ascribed to them by their accountants.
 
Valuing ownership of something where you hold lots of a rare commodity is very difficult. If Amazon decided to sell all their IP4s then suddenly they wouldn't be rare any more and the price would plummet.
AWS own 127 million addresses there are roughly 4000 million available. so approx 3% owned by amazon. Hardly a monopoly position.
Whilst the price per IP4 might be valid right now, the extrapolation to the value of all of their IP4s is complete rubbish.
The point is not primarily the value to purchase right now, it's the fact that AWS has spooted an opportunity to earn 1 billion per year renting addresses out to their customers. As the addresses become more limited the rental cost will go up, one would imagine next year that income will rise to 1.5 billion dollars, and the year after that....

Also note that IP4s have a time limited value - eventually they will be valueless - it would be interesting to see what value over time profile is ascribed to them by their accountants.
Absolutely, but if you can make a cool billion every year for the next 10/15 or 20 years or until the planet has fully transitioned to IPv6 do they really care what the ultimate sale value is?
 
Also with all valuations along with company stocks the price is mixture of offer and demand and expected future value. If Amazon decided to sell all their IPv4 addresses they will never get $35 for each. The market will get flooded and the value will go down. Of course we know Amazon won't sell them yet but that's not the point.
 
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Who's idea was it let these companies sell on IPv4 as assets instead of just treating them as permanently owned by regional internet registries and leasing them out with annual reviews on utilisation?

On my server leases I now pay more for IPv4 than bandwidth, energy and hardware combined. Let that sink in. Still in the process of rolling out NAT on them.
 
Who's idea was it let these companies sell on IPv4 as assets instead of just treating them as permanently owned by regional internet registries and leasing them out with annual reviews on utilisation?

On my server leases I now pay more for IPv4 than bandwidth, energy and hardware combined. Let that sink in. Still in the process of rolling out NAT on them.
Absolute **** show, ridiculous.
 
Some very astute observations & analysis regarding AWS and continuing use of IPv4 from tty[dot]neveragain[dot]de

Quote:

Cannot Escape IPv4

The problem is actually using all the (other) Amazon Web Services.

It’s practically impossible to run IPv6-only on AWS. Trying to configure core services like API Gateway, Lambda,ECS or App Runner into IPv6-only subnets makes them either sternly refuse those subnets or throw comically sad error messages likeNot enough IP space available (Elastic Load Balancer)

snip..

For AWS customers of any relevant size, this IPv4 charge is a drop in the bucket; they won’t even notice it on their bill.In my experience so far, this will usually be very well below 1%. Nobody will invest significant engineering effort for that alone.

For many SMBs, hobbyists and startups though, this charge can easily amount to 10-30% of the bill. These customers certainly would adopt IPv6 to avoid such a price increase.

snip..


 
Can someone please tell me why Amazon with all of its billions, clout and cloud storage not start pushing IPv6 to the masses?
 
Can someone please tell me why Amazon with all of its billions, clout and cloud storage not start pushing IPv6 to the masses?
Money Profit, and a future ongoing source of easy income?

By continuing to rinse their customers for the use of IPv4 addresses, and as its near impossible to use IPv6 only with AWS, customers are going to pay or go elsewhere.

Stockholders/investors demand ever increasing profits.

(see post #7 up thread)
 
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It’s practically impossible to run IPv6-only on AWS. Trying to configure core services like API Gateway, Lambda,ECS or App Runner into IPv6-only subnets makes them either sternly refuse those subnets or throw comically sad error messages likeNot enough IP space available (Elastic Load Balancer)

Whilst I am sure the above statement is accurate and it's hard to run IPv6 native end to end within AWS, actually what many would do is run IPv4 internally within your compute environment but then front it to the internet with dual stack IPv4 and IPv6 (Elastic LB, API gateway, etc).

And if they're having a pop at the lack of decent support for IPv6 in AWS, it's worse in Azure.
 
Sky did it hugely successfully and seamlessly transitioned almost all of their userbase to a dual-stack v4/v6 solution a year or two ago. Shows that it can be done.
Indeed!

Sorting the link you posted via IPv6 capable is quite telling. BSKYB, Lightspeed, Community Fiber, BT, Giganet & Box appear to have managed their customer's transition exceptionally well based on the numbers posted.

Back on thread topic, AWS's continuing purchase and use of IPv4 is about sweating their assets and squeezing customers for extra income by making it difficult to run an IPv6 only infrastructure. Amazon claim they are helping the transition to v6 while doing the exact opposite.
 
Cloudflare now wading in on Amazon's IPv4 rent grab..

Amazon’s $2bn IPv4 tax — and how you can avoid paying it
 
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