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

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Bill Darte wrote:
> 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;

Bill, your interpretation and assessment is excellent.  The policy 
working likely needs to be tweaked a bit, but you have the intent
right.

> 2/ assessment of the
> practicality and usefulness of this policy;

I would like to know this as well, particularly as my employer is not
in the affected group.

> 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
> 

Thanks,

Ted