Lots of good questions and good answers so far. My additional 2c is below:
A super quick and informative response, thank you MickeyD.
- Why haven’t ISP’s moved over to IPv6 to solve the issue of limited IP addresses?
If ISPs could, we would. The latest installment of upgrades on the Telkom network involve scaling up for IPV6 compatibility. When this will be released is still not known. But it would be a godsend for LIRs. ipv4 address space is relatively expensive. ipv6, not so much, but Afrinic's current allocations are fairly limited. You have the option of a relatively small range, then a huge range, and then even bigger, but they are pushing for ipv6 registration at the moment through incentives for new LIRs to purchase ipv6 address space.
[*]If ISP “A” buys the entire capacity will it mean that the other ISP’s will not be able to function?
[*]Is there safeguards in place to prevent the abovementioned?
[*]What does Telkom Wholesale do with IPC that is not sold?
[*]Is Telkom Wholesale allowed to distribute unsold IPC to ISP’s?
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Buying all capacity? Yes, but this will never happen, both legally and commercially, it's not feasible.
Unsold IPC is not unsold - it's spare capacity on the network. In other words it is capacity that has not yet been monetised. If we were running at full core network load on IPC at all times, we'd see massive delays in network upgrades from every ISP in the country. In much the same way as McDonalds doesn't make one hamburger for every order, they instead make 100 and sell them over a few hours, tier 1 network operators build their network for future growth.
Distribute unsold IPC? Well that would make for quite a complicated mess to be honest. How would it be distributed? Because I can assure you that if ISP X gets more IPC than ISP Y, Mweb may sue.
One final note on the above questions: when referring to the core network and exchanges, Telkom Wholesale are not responsible for them. Telkom Wholesale is a wholesale distributor, not a core network operator. You're thinking of SAIX who manage the NOCs, and Telkom who fund the capital investments. The Wholesale division of Telkom is (supposedly) independent and operates as a wholesaler of Telkom products. It's not responsible for the management of, and investment in, the Telkom network itself, although its profits certainly do contribute towards the pool of funds available for reinvestment.
MickeyD's suggestion that spare IPC be reduced in price and sold on is a good one. I'd actually go a step further and suggest massive ESR upgrades for the cross-connects into the metro ethernet IPC handover, and then push "spare" capacity over an exchange, like a financial markets exchange. As long as the ESRs can handle the throughput, and your own ISP/IAP core network can handle the capacity, you should be able to purchase IPC in a truly free market environment via supply and demand pricing and on an ad-hoc basis. Once done, you list your spare capacity for resale on the same market. It is after all a temporary monetisation of unused capacity, and future orders for permanent capacity deplete from this pool as well. Moreover, if ISPs connected better one could on-sell spare capacity like this on a dynamic basis. But then again, why invest in a limited lifespan product to such an extent? And why would Telkom allow this? It would replace their traditional retail model and remove their pricing control as well. So very much pie in the sky thinking here. Also some serious implementation issues I'm not bringing up.
Short answer is yes but it neither helps or matters not.