Frustrated with NE sometimes

Question

Edit: Sorry that I got sore about this. I guess I was having a bad day and vented here. I'm over it!

It is so frustrating that even after well more than a year learning from and trying to help others on this site, important questions that I seek answers to get closed (https://networkengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/29792/public-ipv4-ips-from-isp). I come here for help because I am the sole network admin/network engineer/light bulb changer at my company and I have no other mentors in my professional life - you guys are it. It's as if I've walked down the hall to my mentor's office and asked him a question only to hear "That question is not appropriate, I will not give you an answer because you asked it the wrong way."

And why was this question closed? Because I mentioned pricing? My question was 1. About operating and purchasing an enterprise network which is 2. under my direct control and does not appear to me to meet any of the off-topic bullets listed.

Answer 1

I voted to close the question because what your ISP does is not under your control. What you do on your network in response to the ISP is under your control, but your contract negotiations and pricing with your ISP are off-topic, only the network design and implementation would be on-topic. If you need more public addresses, and the ISP is going to charge a premium for them, there is nothing we can do about that for you, and Network Engineering is not the place to gripe about it. Asking about your ISP, while not appropriate for Network Engineering, may be asked on Network Engineering Chat, and you have enough reputation to participate there.

The reality is that many ISPs are running short of IPv4 addresses. They are more frequently giving residential users CGN (see all the complaints on Super User), reserving the public IPv4 addresses for business users willing to pay for them, and hiking the price so that business with a real need get them, while businesses for which public addresses are not completely necessary don't get them due to the price.

You are a member of the community, and you have a voice. If you can get enough of the community to approve this type of question so that it gets added to the on-topic list, then it will be on-topic, but it is off-topic today.

Answer 2

I understand how frustrating it can be but you had only one question closed (out of 4 asked).

This doesn't prevent you from posting new questions to workaround the issue, leaving aside the ISP.

I personally feel that the second question:

Do I have any other options in terms of seeking addresses from someone else? I presume I must purchase the addresses from my own ISP in order for traffic to be routed correctly to and from me via my ISP.

is on-topic, you may repost it as is,

or something like:

"I cannot get more public IP addresses from my ISP, how can I improve usage of my limited number of public IP addresses?"