[ppml] IPv4 address exhaustion policy

> they don't use on the public network. ARIN's main job is to come up  
> with
> a clear and public policy on address recycling similar to that used by
> the telephony network. If you cease to use a telephone number, the
> network operator will hold it unused for a certain period of time, and
> then reissue it to another subscriber. ARIN should have a similar
> recycling policy for IPv4 addresses.
>
The problem with that theory is that ARIN isn't TPC, it's more like  
NANPA.
NANPA doesn't assign end-telephone numbers, they just assign
AC and Prefixes (much like ARIN).  To make matters even more
complicated, with the advent of LNP (which we will eventually need
to address in IP, no matter how much the aggregation crowd wants
to pretend otherwise), phone numbers move around independent
of their original NANPA block assignments.

Where ARIN differs from NANPA is that ARIN also issues some
direct assignments (which, to the best of my knowledge, end-
subscribers can't get NANPA NPA-NXX assignments) in addition
to Allocations to LIR/ISPs (which more resemble the NANPA
services).

i agree that ARIN should start considering policy for post-exhaustion
management of the address space, but, I don't think that a TPC
style reclamation process quite fits the bill.

For one thing, what mechanism would you use to determine an
address was no longer in use?  Would you use different methods
for post-ARIN allocations/assignments vs. pre-ARIN legacy
assignments in the ARIN region?  If so, what would you do for
each of those cases?

Owen