Last Call for Comment: Policy Proposal 2001-2

[Daniel Golding]

to address the issues raised by Trevor Paquette...

	In regard to your first point, I strongly disagree that this policy will
cause an increase in wasted IP space. Currently, it is common knowledge that
a /24 is, more or less, globally routable. Thus, customers generally demand,
and generally receive /24s upon requests, for the purpose of multihoming. In
those circumstances where ISPs demand additional justification for the /24
allocation, the customer will either provide it (if they have it), or lie in
order to receive it. As there are numerous legitimate multihomed enterprises
that can not justify a /24 via current standard, we have a significant
amount of false justification. This isn't because people are dishonest -
it's because there is a business requirement in many cases to multihome, and
an exaggerated justification is the only way to do it. Any policy that
encourages normally honest people to deceive ARIN or an upstream ISP in
order to achieve a legitimate purpose is, ipso facto, contrary to the good
of the internet community, as open and honest communications between issuer
and issue is essential.

Therefore, IPv4 exhaustion will not occur any sooner - it will occur at the
same rate. However, the general level of honesty and open communication will
rise, which is a worthy goal.

	In regard to your second point, I disagree that customers will take
advantage of this policy to illegitimately secure IP space. There is almost
no reason for a customer to request a /24 unless they intend to multihome.
Even if they feel they need it, checking for the issuance of an AS, and
receiving the customer's assurance that they will multihome should be
sufficient. I don't think anyone will be going back to police their
customers - however, it will be appropriate to ensure compliance with
previous allocations at the time of a request for new allocation. If
additional allocations are made for internal political reasons by an ISP,
they will need to be able to justify them to ARIN. If an organization is so
shortsighted that it would issue space to customers irresponsibly, this
policy proposal will neither accentuate nor ameliorate that
irresponsibility. In the end, such practices tend to "catch up" to ISPs -
usually when they are trying to get additional space from ARIN.

	In regard to your third point, I'm confused. Is your assertion that making
it easier to get globally routable blocks will promote multihoming? If so,
you are correct in that assertion. However, ARIN is meeting the demands of
it's membership in promoting multihoming. Your concerns in regard to AS
number depletion are currently being addressed in the IETF IDR working
group's draft: BGP support for four-octet AS number space,
draft-ietf-idr-as4bytes-04.txt. At the current rate of AS depletion, there
should be sufficient AS numbers for 4 to 6 years into the future. This draft
should be implemented will before then.

	Your forth point is only tangentially related to this policy proposal.
Ensuring that customers meet, and then continue to meet, requirements for
the allocation of IP space has long been the responsibility of their
upstream provider. Although this can be a difficult issue, service providers
should continue their current policies in this regard, which generally
adhere to the idea of requiring justification at time of issuance, and then
requiring additional justification (As well as confirmation of previous
justification) upon additional address request. This is the general model
upon which ARIN related to it's member-customers, and is a good model for
it's members to use in relation to their own customers. No one is being
required to be an "IP Address Cop" to the detriment of their business.
However, everyone is required to act responsibly to safeguard a public
resource. This policy proposal does not alter that axiom.

Needless to say, I support Policy Proposal 2001-2, and urge the ARIN BoD to
adopt it at their earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Daniel Golding

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ppml at arin.net [mailto:owner-ppml at arin.net]On Behalf Of
> Trevor Paquette
> Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 1:48 PM
> To: ppml at arin.net
> Subject: RE: Last Call for Comment: Policy Proposal 2001-2
>
>
>
> By adopting this policy I think the following points should be made:
>
> 1) IPv4 exhaustion
>    v4 space will be used at a higher rate, with an increase of
> wasted space.
>    More and more companies are beginning to rely on the internet
> to conduct
>    their day to day business operations (Raise your hand if you've heard
>    complaints from customers when email is not delivered within 5 minutes
>    after they hit 'send'). As such, these companies will begin to look at
>    providing their own redundant links to the Internet (via multi-homing)
>    and not depend on the redundancy of their upstream provider.
> This 'always
>    connected' (vs 'always on') requirement will increase IP requests to
>    upstream providers.
>
> 2) Potential for abuse of the policy to secure IP space.
>    I can see companies begin to abuse Policy 2001-2 to secure a /24
>    and use very little address space out of that block. Some
> companies will
>    lie about being or becoming multi-homed in order to secure
> more IP space
>    then they really need.
>
>    In today's world, revenue is king. If I have to tell a customer because
>    they are no longer multi-homed (or they lied about it), that I have to
>    pull their IP space; and they threaten to terminate their service with
>    us; guess who is going to win. The customer. Very few Senior Executives
>    understand or care about IP Policy; their job is to make the company
>    money, keep the revenues flowing. If that means the customer gets to
>    keep their /24; so be it.
>
> 3) The current AS limit.
>    As a few folks have mentioned before that AS numbers are a much scarcer
>    commodity then IP space. I agree with that statement. Policy
> 2001-2 will
>    make the AS space run out faster. (Do we need to propose an new policy
>    or an RFC on increasing AS size?)
>
> 4) Reclaimation
>    How does an ISP reclaim the IP space (here comes the key
> phrase) "without
>    losing that customer", should the customer decide one day that they no
>    longer want to be multi-homed? Is it up to the ISP that gave
> the IP space
>    in the first place to periodically check to make sure that the
> customer is
>    in fact still multi-homed? (which brings up point 2 again)
>
> Remember, I'm not saying that these points will happen. I'm
> saying that these
> are very possible scenarios.
>
> My apologies if this has been discussed before; I was in Nassau during the
> hurricane (very little Internet access in Nassau, even more so during the
> storm and the days following it) and I just got home to start
> catching up on
> things.
>
> Trev
> --
>
> Trevor Paquette          |TeraGo Networks Inc.  |Work:(403)668-5321
> Trevor.Paquette at TeraGo.ca|300, 300 Manning Rd NE|Cell:(403)703-8738
> Lead Systems Architect   |Calgary, AB, Canada   |Main:(403)668-5300
> http://www.terago.ca     |       T2E 4K8        | Fax:(403)668-5344
>