[arin-announce] Last Call for Comment: Policy Proposal 2002-2

[Member Services]

The ARIN Advisory Council voted to forward the 
following policy proposal to the ARIN Board of 
Trustees for consideration.

This is a last call for comments on this policy 
proposal prior to the ARIN Board of Trustees review.  
Comments received during this period will be included 
with the proposal when it is presented to the Board 
of Trustees for their consideration.

Please send your comments to ppml at arin.net. This last 
call will expire at 23:59 EST on November 22, 2002. 

Raymond A. Plzak 
President 
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) 


*** Last Call: Policy Proposal 2002-2 *** 

2002-2: Experimental Internet Resource Allocations

There have been a number of experimental address allocations undertaken 
in the Internet over the past decade. These experimental address 
allocations have been made by the IANA in coordination with standards 
bodies, such as the IETF, on an ad hoc basis. There is currently no 
systematic means of receiving other Numbering Resources on a temporary 
basis as part of a recognised experiment in Internet technology 
deployment. The following policy is proposed: 

  The RIRs will allocate Numbering Resources to entities requiring 
  temporary Numbering Resources for a fixed period of time under 
  the terms of recognised experimental activity. 

The following criteria for this policy are proposed: 

1. Public Disclosure of Experimental Requests 
The organisation requesting the resources will have to detail what 
experimental work they are going to carry out. Such detail can usually 
be made either: 
  * by submitting a proposal that references a current IETF 
    Experimental RFC (Detail Two), or 
  * by submitting an 'experiment proposal' detailing what 
    resources are required, and what activities will be 
    carried out (Detail Three). 

Such experimental proposals will, in the normal course of events be made 
public upon acceptance of the proposal by an RIR. Consideration will be 
given to non-disclosure constraints, but this is anticipated to be a 
prohibitive constraint upon the use of public Numbering Resources, even 
in an experimental context. The RIR will not allocate resources if the 
entire research experiment cannot be publicly disclosed as per Details 
Two and Three following. 

2. Resource Coordination with Standards Development Bodies 
The IETF from time to time describes experimental activities and 
associated requirements for resources that will be required by 
participants in the experiment. It is considered as being acceptable for 
the organisation to reference a current Experimental RFC and indicate 
the organisation's participation in the experiment. 

Organisations such as the IETF, who describe experimental activities as 
part of their standards development process, need to consider the 
associated Numbering Resource requirements with any proposed experiment, 
and under this proposal will need to liaise with the RIRs as part of the 
process of publishing a draft as an experimental RFC. 

3. Resource Coordination with Independent Experiments 
For experimental proposals not covered by Detail Two, the RIR will 
require the experiment's aims and objectives to be published in a 
publicly accessible document. 

The RIRs have a strong preference for the use of an Experimental RFC 
published through the IETF, but will accept other publication mechanisms 
where the experiment's objectives and practices are publicly and openly 
available free of charges and free of any constraints of disclosure. 

The RIRs would also normally require that the experiment's outcomes be 
published in an openly and freely available document, again free of 
charges and free of any constraints of disclosure. 

4. Resource Allocation Term and Renewal 
The Numbering Resources are allocated on a lease/license basis for a 
period of one year. The allocation can be renewed on application to the 
issuing RIR providing information as per in Detail One. The identity and 
details of the applicant and the allocated Numbering Resources will be 
published under the conditions of the RIR's normal publication policy 
(for example, listed as a temporary allocation in the RIR's database). 

5. Single Resource Allocation per Experiment 
The RIR will make one-off allocations only, on an annual basis. 
Additional allocations outside the annual cycle will not be made unless 
justified by a subsequent complete application. It's important for the 
requesting organisation to ensure they have sufficient resources 
requested as part of their initial application for the proposed 
experimental use. 

6. Resource Allocation Fees 
Each RIR may charge an administration fee to cover each allocation made 
of these experimental resources. This fee simply covers registration and 
maintenance, rather than the full allocation process for standard RIR 
members. This administration fee should be as low as possible as these 
requests do not have to undergo the same evaluation process as those 
requested in the normal policy environment. 

7. Resource Allocation Size 
The Numbering Resources requested come from the global Internet Resource 
space, and are not from private or other non-routable Internet Resource 
space. The allocation size should be consistent with the existing RIR 
minimum allocation sizes, unless small allocations are intended to be 
explicitly part of the experiment. If an organisation requires more 
resource than stipulated by the minimum allocation sizes in force at the 
time of their request, they should include in their research proposal 
why this is required. 

8. Commercial Use Prohibited 
If there is any evidence that the temporary resource is being used for 
commercial purposes, or is being used for any activities not documented 
in the original experiment description provided to the RIR, the issuing 
RIR reserves the right to immediately withdraw the resource and reassign 
it to the free pool. 

9. Resource Request Appeal or Arbitration 
The RIRs should be in a position to assess and comment on the objectives 
of the experiment with regard to the requested amount of Numbering 
Resources. The issuing RIR should be able to modify the requested 
allocation as appropriate, and in agreement with the proposer. In the 
event that the proposed modifications are not acceptable, the requesting 
organization may request an appeal or arbitration using the normal 
procedures of the RIR. In this case, the original standards body that 
endorsed the experimental action may be requested to provide additional 
information regarding the experiment and its objectives to assist in the 
resolution of the appeal. 

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