Nortel Networks eyes $7.5 million sale of IPv4 numbers to Microsoft

By Lisa Kerner

Charlotte, N.C., March 22 - Nortel Networks Inc. asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware to approve Nortel's sale of about 666,624 legacy IPv4 numbers to Microsoft Corp. for $7.5 million, according to a Tuesday court filing.

A hearing is set for April 26.

Of the 666,624 IPv4 numbers proposed to be transferred under the March 16 purchase agreement, 470,016 are available for immediate use by Microsoft, while the remaining 196,608 are being used in connection with the provision of transition services to existing purchasers of Nortel's business lines. Those numbers would not be transferred until those respective agreements terminate later in the year.

All devices connecting to the internet require a unique internet number space. Most of the approximately 4.3 billion existing IPv4 numbers have been allocated and the industry is preparing to transition to the next generation of Internet Protocol, IPv6.

The value from the current internet numbers will diminish as the virtually unlimited supply of IPv6 addresses become more widely adopted over the next several years, the filing said.

Nortel said it began actively marketing the internet numbers in late 2010 with the assistance of Addrex Inc.

Addrex forwarded solicitation materials to more than 80 potential purchasers. Nortel signed non-disclosure agreements with 14 potential purchasers and received bids from four of them in January.

The debtors determined that Microsoft's bid represented the highest and best offer for the assets and negotiated the sale agreement.

Nortel, a Brampton, Ont.-based manufacturer and supplier of telecommunications networking equipment, filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 14, 2009. Its Chapter 11 case number is 09-10138.

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