The market price for IP addresses are predicted to increase by as much as 100% in the next five years, creating a newfound demand for IP leasing services and turning the remaining IPv4 resources into a tradable commodity. Heficed, an IP marketplace service provider, shares how the newfound demand for IP address leasing can stabilize inflation and provide an additional stream of revenue.
The astonishing growth of prices in the IP market is a result of rapidly depleting IPv4 addresses, while IPv6 is not yet market ready. Throughout last year, the cost of a single address has risen by 35%, reaching prices up to $20-25 per IP.
“Since the IPv4 market is scarcity-driven, it poses a real challenge for businesses looking to scale their operations, especially in foreign markets”, says Vincentas Grinius, CEO of Heficed. “The available resources are rapidly depleting. If the trend continues, over the next five years we could see a drastic increase in IP pricing, perhaps even doubling its current market value.”
The shortage of IPv4s and continuously raising prices has increased the public’s demand for IP leasing services. As obtaining the necessary IP addresses can be an expensive endeavour whereas leasing is able to provide a cost-efficient and timely solution for businesses looking to expand their services into new target markets.
According to Mr. Grinius, there are around 822 million unused IP addresses. “In reality, there are millions of unused IPs, owned by corporations that fail to recognize its current market value”, says Mr. Grinius.
“IPv4s will become irrelevant in the next decade or so, as the market moves to IoT and IPv6 integration, so there’s a limited window to monetize owned resources. By leasing IP addresses for as little as $2,5 per year, companies could earn up to 15 percent return on investment” – added Mr. Grinius.
One of the ways the companies could leverage their assets is through IP brokers, but their expertise lies in the buy-or-sell area, thus they lack the technical knowledge behind leasing IPv4s. But, IP brokers can use the IP address marketplace to facilitate the monetization and mitigate risks of the controlled assets, turn unused IP assets into an additional stream of revenue and enable them to take advantage of the short-term market.
Likewise, leasing could slow down the accelerating inflation by enabling previously mismanaged IPs to re-enter the market. At the same time, this could speed up internet penetration, which was impacted by high IP prices.
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