[ppml] Afrinic and so-called sub-regional policies

[Bill Darte]

WAN (wide-area), LAN (local-area), PAN (premises or now personal-area), CAN
(campus-area)... each representing a area of coverage...
SAN (storage-area) representing a functional environment.
RIR, NIR, LIR, ISP
....lots of acronyms attempting to relate scale and functional status, lots
of confusion.
Little confusion about the meaning of RIR at this point.
Correct me if I am wrong, but Mexico operated a (country-wide) NIR until
being incorporated within LACNIC.  Every ISP is a LIR (localized) relative
to a RIR (regionalized) and there are no independant (non-ISP) LIRs unless
there are remaining NIRs of which I am unaware.  An even more localized ISP
will be a LIR relative to a larger ISP, which again, is a LIR of a larger
scope RIR....right?

Bill Darte
ARIN AC

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Trevor Paquette [mailto:Trevor.Paquette at TeraGo.ca]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 10:11 AM
> To: 'Leo Bicknell'; ppml at arin.net
> Subject: RE: [ppml] Afrinic and so-called sub-regional policies
> 
> 
> Thank you Leo for clearing up RIR vs NIR vs LIR...
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-ppml at arin.net [mailto:owner-ppml at arin.net]On 
> Behalf Of Leo
> > Bicknell
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 8:41 AM
> > To: ppml at arin.net
> > Subject: Re: [ppml] Afrinic and so-called sub-regional policies
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > There seems to be some disagreement in the documentation.
> > 
> > At http://www.iana.org/ipaddress/ip-addresses.htm, we find that:
> > 
> >    ] Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are assigned in a delegated 
> > manner. Users
> >    ] are assigned IP addresses by Internet service providers 
> > (ISPs). ISPs
> >    ] obtain allocations of IP addresses from a local Internet 
> > registry (LIR)
> >    ] or national Internet registry (NIR), or from their 
> > appropriate Regional
> >    ] Internet Registry (RIR):
> > 
> >    From this it's already a bit unclear if the picture is:
> > 
> >            RIR                 RIR
> >           /   \        or     /   \
> >         NIR   LIR           NIR   NIR
> >                            /   \  
> >                          LIR   LIR
> > 
> > However, if we dig deeper, at http://www.iana.org/icp/icp-2.htm,
> > we find that NIR is never mentioned in this document.  Humm, they
> > seem to have disappeared.  But, we do have a geographic requirement
> > for RIR's:
> > 
> >    ] 1) The region of coverage should meet the scale to be 
> > defined by ICANN,
> >    ] given the need to avoid global address fragmentation
> >    ] 
> >    ] The proposed RIR must operate internationally in a large 
> > geographical
> >    ] region of approximately continental size.
> >    ] 
> >    ] Each region should be served by a single RIR, 
> > established under one
> >    ] management and in one location. The establishment of 
> > multiple RIRs in
> >    ] one region is likely to lead to:
> >    ] 
> >    ] fragmentation of address space allocated to the region; 
> >    ] difficulty for co-ordination and co-operation between 
> the RIRs; 
> >    ] confusion for the community within the region. 
> >    ] 
> >    ] The internal administrative or membership structure of 
> > an RIR must also
> >    ] not be such as to cause any of these effects.
> > 
> > So, the standard here is "large geographical region" of 
> "approximately
> > continental size".  Not a must be a continent, just a large size.
> > 
> > However, this document also mentions ICANN.  However when you go
> > to ICANN, all I can find is http://www.icann.org/icp/icp-2.htm,
> > which seems to be a copy of the document on the IANA site.
> > 
> > These two documents also have this interesting wording:
> > 
> >    ] IP address space is currently distributed by the three 
> > existing RIRs
> >    ] that receive address space from IANA and allocate it 
> > further to Local
> >    ] Internet Registries (LIRs) or Internet Service Providers 
> > (ISPs). These
> >    ] LIRs*, in turn, assign addresses to end-users for use in 
> > operational
> >    ] networks.
> > 
> >    ] (*) For the purposes of this document, any reference to 
> > LIRs can be
> >    ] taken to mean LIRs and ISPs.
> > 
> > I'm going to assume from the footnote that LIR != ISP (eg, they are
> > not synonyms, merely treated equally).
> > 
> > If we go back further in history, there is also
> > http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2050.html.  I'll not quote as I believe
> > it's been largely superseded by the other documents mentioned,
> > however of interest is Section 1, which has RIR's and LIR's (no
> > NIR's).  This reading also has some other very interesting 
> > (historical)
> > requirements in it.
> > 
> > Also of interest, particularly when looking at AfriNIC, is
> > http://www.iana.org/reports/lacnic-report-07nov02.htm, the report
> > on LACNIC's acceptance.  Of note in this document:
> > 
> >    ] 6) Adherence to global policies regarding address space 
> > conservation,
> >    ] aggregation and registration.
> >    ] 
> >    ] The LACNIC application satisfies Principle 6. Throughout 
> > the transition,
> >    ] LACNIC has operated under the ARIN policies that have 
> > historically been
> >    ] applicable to allocations and assignments to operators 
> within its
> >    ] service region. Those policies are consistent with the 
> > global policies
> >    ] applicable to IP address allocation and assignment.
> > 
> > While it's not a requirement that a new RIR have the same policies
> > as an existing RIR, it was seen as a positive the LACNIC had the
> > same policies as ARIN during the transition.  I would presume it
> > would be similarly positive if AfriNIC had the same policies as
> > {RIPE,ARIN,APNIC} during their transition.
> > 
> > This leaves me with a few questions.  I'm interested in 
> > answers for all
> > RIR's, but of course extra interested in ARIN's bit of the world:
> > 
> > 1) Are there any NIR's?
> > 
> > 2) Are there any LIR's? (Not ISP's)
> > 
> > 3) Has AfriNIC written a document themselves, or had someone
> >    independently review what they have done in the context of ICP-2?
> >    This would help evaluate how close they are to really being a
> >    recognized registry.
> > 
> > 4) Do people feel that "approximately continental size" would only
> >    mean of continent size or greater, or that, particularly for
> >    big continents, it could mean more than one "RIR" in  a continent
> >    (by design, not by the happy accident that is currently the
> >    Africa situation).
> > 
> > -- 
> >        Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
> >         PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
> > Read TMBG List - tmbg-list-request at tmbg.org, www.tmbg.org
> > 
>