[arin-ppml] Fairness of banning IPv4 allocations to somecategoryof organization

[James Hess]

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:51 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at ipinc.net> wrote:
>> allocation principle as soon as scarcity arises.
> I disagree.  It's not a COMPLETE breakdown.  However, you are
> correct in that it -IS- a breakdown.

Policy can make stipulations and exceptions as needed.
Maybe "needs-based"  has been qualified  by something else  implicitly
for a long time?       Like, uh   "justified"?

So what would/should ARIN tell a startup ISP/IX that went out today
and (to save some cash) bought a bunch of ancient IPV4 routing gear
that  was so old it cannot implement CIDR or variable-length
subnetting?
And their customers have some  network application  that only works
correctly when a /24 is available to them.

So the ISP will want oversized classful blocks of ARIN,  contrary to
policy that VLSM should be used.

They have a technical need for a /16,  because they need it to
allocate their 200
customers (each a class C, for an average 20 or so hosts per network,
probably dialup customers,  but a custom app designed for them
requires a /24) --   and due to said lack of VLSM, this passes for
"efficient" utilization..  (that is,  as efficiently as it's
technically feasible,  given the strange designs they have chosen of
their own free will).


At some point, there should be a way to draw a line between *true*
need and  avoidable need.

It's  sensible that the answer to glaring waste should sometimes be
"No,  the address space requested is too large, given the use of the
network."   (as measured in increased number human participants, web
servers, etc..).

Or  "this particular utilization, is deemed an excessively wasteful
technology, as a matter of policy";   e.g.  the technology itself  is
considered to create a usage of addressing,  that we arbitrarily  deem
to be unjustified   (regardless of the technical justifications).

"Avoidable need"  being a case where an org can obviously satisfy the same
IP addressing function, just as effectively, and without impairment of
functionality,  using either IPv6  address  space, or  by using  a
much smaller amount of V4 address  space, such as e.g. by implementing
VLSM, or replacing the custom application,   even if they only have to
buy additional equipment or make design changes   (including design
change to existing network,  and changes that require they have their
custom application  rewritten  to remove the /24  assumption).


--
-J