The Benefits and Risks
of Leasing IPv4 Space

September 23, 2020

IPv4.Global is beginning to lease IPv4 addresses, starting with a /16 registered in ARIN available for a long-term lease. With address prices rising, the reasons you may want to become a lessor are clear: extended predictable revenue. Leasing creates an opportunity to monetize IP addresses and sell an IP block for a higher price in the future versus in the current market – it allows the lessor to keep the IPv4 block in case of future need. But what are the benefits to the lessee (the one receiving the IP address block)? Not as obvious, but still substantial for many businesses, there are a number of advantages, including:

• It is sometimes preferable to use OpEx instead of CapEx.
• Leasing allows a company to use their capital for other urgent investments, which offsets the cost of the lease as they see their return on that capital.
• It allows a company to align their expenses more closely to their revenues.
• While in process of renumbering, it’s sometimes helpful to have an unused block to renumber into. This way old space can be reclaimed and reorganized before being reused.
• While in process of migrating to IPv6, leasing is the perfect solution to acquire temporary IP addresses, rather than spending extra capital, simply to gain unneeded IPv4 addresses.

As with any sort of leasing agreement, it’s important to note that while a great option, leasing still has risks. These risks can range from minor timing issues to malicious lessee intent, but are things all parties involved should consider. Potential risks may include:

• The lessor needing the addresses before the end of the term
• The lessee needing the addresses longer than the term
• A malicious or inattentive lessee allowing the addresses to be used for spam or malicious behavior. This would result in sites blacklisting traffic from those addresses, making them unusable at the end of the lease until the listings have been cleaned up.

Generally, the cost of leasing can also be higher than buying addresses long-term. The actual break-even point depends on the terms of the lease, and is something to be considered while making the decision. The team here at IPv4.Global has plans in place to mitigate all of these risks to ensure all clients are happy with their agreement and terms. When leasing address space, every offer must include a monthly price per address and a term length, so the lessor can evaluate offers comparably. We look forward to providing you the space you need! ___ Follow us on Medium.com