IPXO, formerly known as Heficed’s IP Address Platform is now the world’s first IP marketplace. According to Vincentas Grinius, CEO of IPXO, “In this position, we can provide a meaningful solution to help sustain the eco-system of the internet by reusing the existing sleeping inventory of IPv4 addresses and in addition, provide a significant revenue stream to businesses who are sitting on unused IP addresses. In this scenario, everyone can win and be a part of the solution”.
Running IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously is slow and expensive
IPv4 uses a 32-bit address, allowing for 4.3 billion unique addresses. IPv6 uses a 128-bit address, which provides an immensely higher number of unique address combinations. For some massive global organizations, transitioning from majority IPv4 to majority IPv6 is a great solution.
However, it is not a great solution for everyone. Because less than 30% of all internet-connected networks promote IPv6 connectivity, organizations transitioning to IPv6 will have to run IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously which is both slow and expensive.
Some experts are recommending a shared addresses model where a public IPv4 address is assigned to cover several customers simultaneously. Each customer would have a different port range internally to ensure that there was no overlap.While a good idea conceptually, the technical execution is expensive to build and challenging to maintain. It will likely also lead to slowdowns and more moving parts that can fail. Neither solution takes into account the millions of dormant IPv4 addresses.
Vincentas Grinius, CEO of IPXO and Heficed, said,
“We don’t need added layers of complexity that will add cost and slowdown transfers of data. What we do need is a way to incentivize ISPs (or other businesses) who are sitting on tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of unassigned IPv4 addresses to bring those addresses to market for other organizations. This is where IPXO was conceived. We needed a global platform where IPv4 addresses could be securely leased and monetized.”