[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal 2008-4 - Staff Assessment

[David Williamson]

On Thu, Oct 09, 2008 at 01:34:28PM -0400, Leo Bicknell wrote:
> So I don't believe population density has anything to do with the
> problem, and I would not support taking the definition in a direction
> that uses population density as a metric.

I agree that population density isn't the relevant point, but I don't
think it's as simple as geography either.  If it is, what about
something like Catalina Island off of LA?  That's clearly not in scope
for this proposal.

I think the challenges in the Caribbean stem from a combination of
geographic isolation *and* separate political (and regulatory)
environments.

That said, the proposal is a bit odd geographically.  It doesn't
actually contain a definition of who is (and isn't) part of that
region.  I assume Bermuda is included, even though it is not notably
close the Caribbean.  Politically, Bermuda has much in common with St.
Pierre and Miquelon, although the populations are of different scale.
I couldn't find a definition of "Caribbean region" in a quick search of
the ARIN website either, so this proposal is a bit ambiguous.  Does an
ISP in the Florida Keys qualify under this policy?  The intent is
clearly to not allow that.

I support the intent of this policy.  I'd prefer to see a policy that
either listed the relevant countries and territories (directly or be
reference to some other document within ARIN), or simply said non-US
and non-Canada portions of the ARIN region.

-David