[arin-ppml] Advisory Council Meeting Results - March 2011

[Benson Schliesser]

Hi, Scott.

On Mar 24, 2011, at 8:04 PM, Scott Leibrand wrote:

> Per https://www.arin.net/about_us/acguidelines.html#approval
> ...
> In the case of the March 17 meeting, the minutes were sent to the AC
> for review on March 21, so they should be considered approved on the
> 4th of April (or possibly the 11th, if a second round of review is
> needed), and can be posted shortly after that.

Thank you for explaining this.

Just a comment / feedback for the AC:  I feel it is important to review the minutes before I decide how to proceed, and I understand that I must initiate an appeal (via the petition process) within 5 days after the minutes are posted.  Thus I'd like to see these posted in a predictable and efficient way.


> I agree with you that the NRPM is ambiguous on the question of whether
> ISPs can act as LIRs for organizations that don't buy IP connectivity
> services from them.   The relevant NRPM section is:
> 
> 2.4. Local Internet Registry (LIR)
> 
> A Local Internet Registry (LIR) is an IR that primarily assigns
> address space to the users of the network services that it provides.
> LIRs are generally Internet Service Providers (ISPs), whose customers
> are primarily end users and possibly other ISPs.
> 
> However, during the evaluation of ARIN-prop-132, ARIN staff stated
> that "If a network assigns address space without a corresponding
> network service (i.e. connectivity), it's no longer an LIR, thus no
> longer an ISP, thus ineligible for consideration under ISP policy."
> 
> In order to change that, we'd need a policy proposal to modify NRPM
> 2.4.  Given what I've learned about the impacts of a more liberal
> definition of LIR in the RIPE region, I don't think I'd support
> relaxing the "network services" requirement in 2.4.

With respect to the ARIN staff, I believe their assessment is unfounded.  Current policy text uses "primarily" and "generally" to define the LIR - ISP - Customer relationships.  Thus, this is not an exclusive definition.  There is nothing that says the end users must be customers of the LIR, and nothing that requires a customer to receive connectivity services.

Having said that, I agree that it is ambiguous.  The ARIN staff review errs on the side of a loose interpretation of policy, resulting in more conservative expectations, and I think this is misleading.

Cheers,
-Benson