 | Chris Owen
is President and founder of Hubris Communications. Until the opening of Hubris' Wichita office, Mr. Owen was the sole network technician and systems administrator of the company. Hubris Communications is a provider of premium Dial-Up, ADSL, SDSL, Wireless, and dedicated Internet Services. Founded in Garden City, Kansas and doing business since July 1995, Hubris Communications, Inc. serves over 3,200 customers in south central and southwestern Kansas. Chris can be reach at (316) 858-3000 or owenc@hubris.net |
Computers & Software
2003-06-01 12:47:00
Who owns IP addresses?
QUESTION: I have a range of IP addresses but my ISP says the range belongs to them. Who owns the IP addresses I use?
ANSWER: First of all, no one "owns" IP addresses. IP addresses are allocated for use by central agencies for use by people/companies/ISPs on the Internet. In the United States IP addresses are normally allocated by the American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN). ARIN has very specific policies on how IP addresses are to be used if you want to get and keep allocatations of those addresses. Normally IP addresses are only allocated to ISPs or very large organizations. At one time it was possible to get IP addresses allocated directly to you in small blocks. It was not uncommon to see an organization with an allocation of 255 IP addresses. Today, however it is not possible to get your own allocation of less than 4,096 IP addresses from ARIN. In order to even do that, the organization requesting it must show that they are already using at least 75% of number of addresses (someone else's addresses). If your organization is multi-homed (you have more than one provider and balance your connection between the two), the requirements are less strict but still require you be using at least 2,000 IP addresses. So unless you using at least 3,000 IP address (1,500 if multi-homed) it is unlikely you have been allocated IP addresses directly from ARIN. If you had you would definitely know it because the paperwork required can be daunting and you would also be paying ARIN at least $1,500 a year for your allocated addresses. What is more likely is that the IP addresses previously allocated to your ISP have been "assigned" to you. End users are normally assigned IP addresses by their provider. The addresses are non-portable and the addresses can not be moved to another provider (or in general not even advertised to another provider). So in most cases, the addresses you will be using are allocated to a specific provider and can be used with anyone else. There is one additional thing to note about this whole process of who "owns" IP addresses. While it is completely normal for an end user to be using their provider's IP addresses (and this is what ARIN wants) it is important when looking for an ISP to look for one that does have their own IP address allocation directly from ARIN. Without their own IP addresses it is difficult for a provider to be connected to more than one upstream provider in a meaningful way. In addition should the ISP ever change their upstream provider, without their own IP addresses, you as the end user will be required to change all your IP addresses. This can be a significant problem especially if it happens very often.
