[ppml] Policy Proposal: 2007-12 IPv4 Countdown Policy Proposal

[Leo Bicknell]

While I think there has been a lot of good discussion generated
from the IPv4 policy, a lot of it has strayed from the original
policy proposal.  I'm going to attempt to bring that back around a
bit as we need to tackle the issue of address space exhaustion.

To that end, I'd like to oversimplify the proposal.  Language,
format, and justification aside I believe the proposal can be boiled
down to the following simpler statement:

    The RIR's, in order to assure the orderly shutdown of IPv4
    allocations should do their best to predict the date at which
    there will be no more IPv4 addresses available, should announce
    a termination date just before the predicted exhaustion, and
    should cease allocations on that date even if there is some
    address space still available.

I believe the intent of the authors is to realize a number of potential
benefits:

- There is a well known date at which no more IPv4 space will be
  available, making it easier for those needed addresses to show their
  management the need for alternate plans.

- By the RIR's shutting down distributions of addresses at the same
  time it prevents the "last RIR standing" from being swamped by every
  international company solely because they still have addresses.

Of course, there are drawbacks:

- This requires global coordination.

- We may leave some IPv4 space unused that could otherwise be put to
  good use.

- This policy itself may cause a run on IP space.

There are alternatives, Owen DeLong just wrote about what would probably
be considered the opposite viewpoint in another message, I quote:

    I believe that the system will function and that there is no need
    to  do anything different until ARIN is unable to fulfill requests.
    At that time,  ARIN should fulfill request it can on a
    first-come-first-serve basis and provide  a polite apology in
    response to requests which cannot be fulfilled.  I do not  believe
    a change of policy is required in order for ARIN staff to do this.

Last, in an attempt to keep the discussion focused, I'd ask you to
consider if these related topics are relevant to this policy's thread,
along with why I think most are not:

- Reclamation of unused address space.  It doesn't matter if we do this
  or not, all predictions are we still run out of address space.  All
  this does is move the date, which is a valid discussion but the topic at
  hand here is what happens when the RIR's have no more space to
  allocate.

- Encouraging people to use less IPv4 addresses, including but not
  limited to higher fees, required use of NAT, rejustification of existing
  IPs.   Same issue, it delays the date we run out, but doesn't change
  the problem of what the RIR's should do when they run out.

- Are the predictions of when we run out correct?  Same problem, doesn't
  matter if it's 2010, 2020, or 2050, the question is what do we do when
  it happens.

I'd like to see all three of those issues discussed, just in another
thread.

-- 
       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
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