ColoCrossing Makes List of Largest ARIN Free Pool IP Acquirers in 2013

[drmike]

So, my buddies at ColoCrossing are getting noticed in academic circles for IPV4 hoarding and abuse.

Assistant Professor, Vibhanshu Abhishek from Carnegie Mellon University in a paper titled "Context and Realities of the IPV4 Market: What Technology Leaders Need to Know" mentions ColoCrossing in a graph of the biggest IPV4 free pool accumulators for 2013.

On page 20, of the research is a graphic labeled "Table 3: 10 Largest Acquirers from ARIN Free Pool - 2013", ColoCrossing comes in seventh, trailing Microsoft and ahead of Enzu.

ColoCrossing is listed with 458,752 IPv4 Allocated through October 2013.

The full paper can be found here: http://www.kalorama.com/PageFiles/212/Context%20and%20Realities%20of%20the%20IPv4%20Market.pdf. The graph  listing ColoCrossing can be found on page 20 of the PDF.

 

[MannDude]

I was under the impression they had like 7 to 10 racks across all their locations. That's a shit ton of addresses for that amount of servers.

 

[drmike]

Well the locations vary.  Where it costs real cashola, stick them at 1-2 racks per location.

CC is strange though, massive 200k+ IP growth in a year and well, have you seen any new massive buildouts?  Looks like ZERO growth on servers deployed.  Yeah they lit up a rack in NJ at Choopa.  Oh did I say a rack...?  No significant growth to begin to even justify all this IPV4 allocation.

 

[Virtovo]

Come IPv4 exhaustion those 458,752 become a very valuable asset.  Will be interesting to see if their business model changes at that time.

 

[Francisco]

http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/query/SBL208547

http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/query/SBL208537

It's easy to request space when you sell an /18 to a few U's of space.

I'd love to see if they actually reported the removal of that customer to ARIN or if they simply keep the listing to ARIN.

Francisco

 

[cubixcloud]

And those of us that know NRPM you must report /29 or larger via SWIP or rWHOIS.

 

[jarland]

Come IPv4 exhaustion those 458,752 become a very valuable asset. Will be interesting to see if their business model changes at that time.

We have a winner. Why else would anyone be so invested in the bottom of the barrel? Easy sales, easy justification.

 

[vRozenSch00n]

Come IPv4 exhaustion those 458,752 become a very valuable asset.  Will be interesting to see if their business model changes at that time.

So this is actually a long term investment when IPv4 is depleted.

 

[cubixcloud]

It would have to be unless they can truly justify the immediate or 3 month need. I've seen other providers request multiple /17s in a matter of 3 month gap and get them and I know the requests were bs. That would be the new business model because folks talk down IPv6.

IPv6 will only work if providers start pushing it. The eye ball networks are doing more than they were few years back but not enough. It's the hosting industry that can actually force IPv6. 

Now days, when we talk to customers that are looking to build out a network for their business or upgrade, if they don't want to incorporate IPv6 capable equipment in the plan then we simply force them in a nice way.   Also, they have to select a ISP that at least realistically have a plan for IPv6.

 

[MannDude]

Don't you need to show active use of 70-80% of your allocation before ARIN justifies an audit? Has ARIN ever 'revoked' IP space due to hoarding or non-justification of current space?

 

[SkylarM]

Don't you need to show active use of 70-80% of your allocation before ARIN justifies an audit? Has ARIN ever 'revoked' IP space due to hoarding or non-justification of current space?

"Justifying" is simply an excel doc with a list of names and subnets, as well as any further justification for larger allocations. Not sure if they actually verify if an IP is in use via pings or anything like that.

 

[cubixcloud]

You must show 80% utilization of all previous space to receive new allocations.

RFC2050.

 

[cubixcloud]

Don't you need to show active use of 70-80% of your allocation before ARIN justifies an audit? Has ARIN ever 'revoked' IP space due to hoarding or non-justification of current space?

ARIN has revoked space before for fraud, spam, non-payment.

 

[serverian]

IIRC, Colocrossing has over 200 racks in Buffalo and Chicago alone.

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

IIRC, Colocrossing has over 200 racks in Buffalo and Chicago alone.

Don't believe it unless you've seen it for yourself.  I don't see them having "200 racks", or even 100, in that little building where we picked up our gear in Buffalo - not without owning a substantial portion of the building itself.  And the chances of that?  Hah.

EDIT:  And if you think about it - look at how quick those jokers are to brag about being "big company".  Someone that interested in showing off would be wanting to give guided tours of their setup, not taking ridiculous measure to keep people from seeing it.

 

[rds100]

To me it also seems that the spinning of multiple ultracheap VPS companies under different names / hidden ownership is just a part of a big IP hoarding operation. They hoard a massive amount of IPs, then when ARIN dries out and the cost of IPs rises, all these companies will be no longer needed and the IPs can be used for more profitable things.

 

[Virtovo]

Don't believe it unless you've seen it for yourself.  I don't see them having "200 racks", or even 100, in that little building where we picked up our gear in Buffalo - not without owning a substantial portion of the building itself.  And the chances of that?  Hah.

EDIT:  And if you think about it - look at how quick those jokers are to brag about being "big company".  Someone that interested in showing off would be wanting to give guided tours of their setup, not taking ridiculous measure to keep people from seeing it.

There was a photo some time ago that showed a build out of their Buffalo location.  It seemed to suggest around 50 racks.  Who owns the location they are in?  I think they may be bigger than some people are giving them credit for.  There are a few large companies who host with them (Dediserve, VPS6.net etc).  

Their v4 allocation is not reflective of their size however and this is where the problem lies.

 

[Francisco]

There was a photo some time ago that showed a build out of their Buffalo location.  It seemed to suggest around 50 racks.  Who owns the location they are in?  I think they may be bigger than some people are giving them credit for.  There are a few large companies who host with them (Dediserve, VPS6.net etc).  

Their v4 allocation is not reflective of their size however and this is where the problem lies.

They rent from CentriLogic which owns the DC space in Buffalo. It's likely that Jon has some sort of ramp up on cabs. Probably 6 months ago Jon went on a selling run trying to offload a bunch of cabs out of Chicago. Price floating around was a cab, 20A, gig unmetered, and a /22 for ~$800/month. 2nd month free, no setup.

Francisco

 

[Virtovo]

Lots of providers are helping them do so: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1333582

 

[scv]

"Justifying" is simply an excel doc with a list of names and subnets, as well as any further justification for larger allocations. Not sure if they actually verify if an IP is in use via pings or anything like that.

They do attempt to ping and reach IPs in the spreadsheet. They may also ask for detailed information for certain customers in the list.