[arin-ppml] Proposal 98: Last Minute Assistance for Small ISPs

[Bill Darte]

Hello,

I am the ARIN Advisory Council shepherd for policy proposal #98 Last
Minute Assistance for Small ISPs.

This policy proposal(PP) was authored by Ted Mittelstaedt and accepted
onto the ACs docket to review and work on.  It was received too late to
evaluate fully, fashion acceptable text to become a draft policy and be
presented at the Dearborn meeting, just past.

Essentially, the PP asks ARIN to follow a predetermined lowering of the
minimum allocation size of blocks for ISPs as the free pool(FP) of ARIN
addresses depletes.  The minimum allocation size of /20 would be lowered
to /21 when ARIN has allocated 90% of its FP (which presumably is the
last IANA /8 allocated according to NRPM 10.4). Subsequently, when the
FP exhausts 95% the minimum will become a /22.  At 97% exhaustion, the
minimum becomes /23 and remains so.  The purpose is to allow ISPs who
have never been able to qualify for /20 allocations, to qualify under
this policy for small blocks of address space.

The AC accepted this PP because it is yet another end-game tool proposed
to transition the industry and expectations during the runout of IPv4
addresses and there seems to be sympathy with this in the community.

Reservations expressed by myself at the time of acceptance was that the
proposal seemed overly complex with thresholds and tiggers that rely
upon 1/ ARIN's ability to accurately assess the remaining free pool in
small, single digit percentages; 2/ the ability of ARIN to react to
changes in status of the free pool based upon these thresholds and
announce the changes to the public; and 3/ most importantly, that all
these thresholds and all the remaining FP might be eliminated with a
single justified large allocation rendering the policy's incremental
process mute. 

However, IF space were returned in small amounts to ARIN, post runout,
then this policy would establish a new and continuing small size for
allocations to help emerging or other small ISPs.  It is impossible to
predict the status of the Internet routing table at this time and
whether upstream providers would announce such small networks.  It is
therefore impossible to predict the usefulness of this outcome of the
policy.

In preparation for AC discussion of this PP to determine its fate
(abandonment or adoption as a draft policy), I ask the Internet
community to read the PP at
http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/2009-July/014747.html and
comment on this list.

Specifically, I would request your 1/ interpretation of this policy as
it may differ from my explanation above; 2/ assessment of the
practicality and usefulness of this policy; and 3/ a clear statement of
support or lack of support for this PP becoming a draft policy.  If it
becomes a draft policy, it will be discussed at the Toronto public
policy meeting and perhaps eventually become an implemented policy.

Thank you for your support of ARIN and your involvement in the policy
development process.

Bill Darte
ARIN Advisory Council