[arin-ppml] Preemptive IPv6 assignment

[Matthew Kaufman]

  On 10/7/2010 1:53 PM, Andrew Koch wrote:
>
> While I like the idea of making it easy as possible to get IPv6 space,
> there needs to be some planning and responsibility behind getting this
> space.
>
Why? There's lots of it.

I have an even easier idea: Ignore what's visible in BGP and simply 
direct IANA to allocate a portion of IPv6 space such that:
<prefix>:<ASN>/<size>.

A few choices might be:
     A) prefix of 16 bits, full 32-bit ASN, size=48 (this is the obvious 
one, but then lots of entities need to come back for more, as they 
really are ISPs to more than just customers who'll take a /56 or /64... 
but it is a fairly conservative "experiment" to only use a single 16-bit 
prefix)
    B) prefix of 3 or 4 bits, 28 or 29 bits of ASN (hoping that we never 
allocate that many 32-bit ASNs), size=32 (this is the one that means 
that almost nobody ever needs to come back for more)
Nice compromises include:
     C) prefix of 4 bits, full 32 bits of ASN, size=36 (I like this as 
much or better than choice B, but one could argue that it is a lot of v6 
space to use)
     D) prefix of 8 bits, full 32 bits of ASN, size=40 (not bad, and 
doesn't use up nearly as much IPv6 space if it turns out to be a bad idea)


Then every ASN, legacy* and new, in all regions, immediately gets a 
reasonable amount of IPv6 space without any additional paperwork or 
database entries.

The only problem created by this (especially if "size" is up near or at 
/32) is a financial one for the registries... but they're going to have 
that problem with nobody coming back for additional v6 assignments anyway.

Matthew Kaufman

* I will observe here that there are lots of entities who have legacy 
IPv4 space and legacy AS numbers who currently aren't party to a LRSA 
and don't pay anyone anything. By definition, they were early adopters 
of IPv4. One might suppose that such folks might also be/have been early 
adopters of IPv6... but they are in a particular bind if they want to 
keep their status with regard to (in this region) ARIN at the same time 
as they try to be an early IPv6 adopter.