In the early days of the Internet, the idea was that you'd get one block of IP addresses ever and it would last you forever, so companies were given class A blocks under the assumption that they would probably eventually need more than a class B.
I suspect these companies will sell off these addresses if there are ever enough buyers to take them. Right now I don't think there's anyone who needs ~$160M worth of addresses.
This is basically true. I can remember in the early '80s filling out the ARIN address block request for my then employer and thinking "I've got a couple of hundred end points now, so I'll just ask for a Class B so I won't have to worry about it again". They gave it to me. We never used more than 1000 IPs. At least part of that company eventually became some sort of low-rent hosting company, so maybe they're using more, but I doubt it.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 18.7 ms ] threadSeems like we could easily reallocate half of IPv4 by getting these corporations to sell/give up most of their blocks.
I suspect these companies will sell off these addresses if there are ever enough buyers to take them. Right now I don't think there's anyone who needs ~$160M worth of addresses.